


The House of the Lost

by authoressjean



Series: The Haunted Hotels [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, BAMF Dean Winchester, BAMF Sam Winchester, Brotherly Love, Case Fic, Episode: s08e10 Torn and Frayed, Gen, Horror, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Minor Character(s), Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-02 00:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21152936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authoressjean/pseuds/authoressjean
Summary: Sequel to And the Guilty Soldiers Fall. Focusing on hunting something simple to get back into the swing of things after Purgatory and Amelia, Dean and Sam stumble across the Hollins House, a simple haunting where people disappear for good. Yet nothing is ever simple, and as people begin to vanish one by one, their only way out is to find the truth before they lose one another again - for good.





	1. The Hollins House

**Author's Note:**

> Third in the Haunted Hotel series, here we go! I honestly don't know how many of these there will be, they just sort of keep popping into my head. And every Halloween is another chance to share moar creepies.
> 
> There is gore, horror, angst, minor character deaths ahead. But there is also a crap-ton of don't-touch-my-brother, feels, and a happy ending. 
> 
> This fic will be finished by Halloween. This means there may be days of two chapters at once. But ultimately this fic will be finished and posted by October 31st. Happy Halloween, y'all.

Another day, another random tiny town. Dean pulled a newspaper out of the bin and headed back to the car. Sam had his laptop out, already back in the saddle and searching for a new job. It kept them busy, kept them focused. Two stalwart soldiers fighting the good fight.

Dean hated it.

Ever since they’d agreed to put Amelia and Benny and the whole damn mess behind them, they’d been focused on hunting. It was the one thing they could slide into like a well-worn suit. The one thing they could agree on. Except when that was the only thing they could agree on, it left the rest of the time absolutely destitute and devoid of, well, life.

With a sigh he slid behind the wheel and shut the door. He tossed all three papers that he’d gotten – local, state, and national – beside him on the seat. Sam didn’t even glance up, eyes laser-focused on the laptop screen. Dean began to say something, then stopped. Wasn’t like he knew what conversation was these days. Talking hadn’t been something to encourage in Purgatory; it just gave your position away. He felt like he was learning how to be a human being all over again sometimes. Maybe he’d become one of the things he’d spent a year trying to kill.

He wondered if this was how Sam had felt, after Lucifer, the demon blood, the visions. His lips thinned at the unhappy thought, particularly since he hadn’t exactly given Sam a lot to go on in those days.

Screw this. There was no reason for them to not be talking to each other. They’d promised they would stick together again, come whatever, the Winchesters indivisible. The only thing holding them back was themselves, and Dean was done with their own stupidity. He’d sworn that they would set the time apart aside and start fresh, and if he let them stay silent, working only as hunters, not as brothers, then that wasn’t a fresh start, it was just allowing the wound to fester.

And he’d missed Sam, dammit. He’d spent the year fighting to get back to his little brother, the one he’d been terrified had fallen into Purgatory with him, or met with some other horrendous fate. The only thing Sam had done had been to hit a dog and fall into bed with a woman.

Nope. He was letting it go. Not doing that anymore.

He glanced around outside. Tamworth, New Hampshire wasn’t much to look at, but Dean liked the quiet. Getting this close to Maine and the woods he’d stumbled out of didn’t make him happy, but the backroads did, and he could skirt away from the main interstates to his heart’s content. Even without the Leviathans wreaking havoc everywhere and hunting them down, it still made him itch to stay away from the main roads. A lot of things made him itch.

Including Sam’s silence. It wasn’t a passive aggressive silence, or even a petulant silence. It felt too much like when Sam hadn’t spoken because he’d felt he didn’t have the right after the whole Lucifer mess. He’d nudged and teased and finally pulled Sam out of his self-recriminating shell, and they’d built up to a strong bond of brotherhood again.

Then Sam had jumped into Hell. And Dean had gone to play house.

He pursed his lips and turned to Sam. “Want something to eat?” he asked.

Sam blinked like he was waking up. “What?”

“The diner over there.” Dean pointed to the brick building with a flashing sign up at the top. Weathered and worn with what looked like a fresh coat of white paint on the sides, _Dale’s Diner _looked like a winner. “Get you something good to eat. You barely touched breakfast.” Something else Sam had done a lot of in the wake of Lucifer.

Sam closed his laptop and put it back in his bag. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re not part hobbit. We had breakfast, like, two hours ago.”

“Correction, I had breakfast three hours ago. You had coffee and a brick.”

“I think you meant to say protein bar.”

“It looked like a brick. I should know, I tapped it against my hand and nearly broke my palm.”

“No, you just succeeded in turning a perfectly good granola bar into crumbs. Thanks for that, by the way.” But Sam was smiling now, and something in Dean eased at the sight. Sammy, whole, healthy, and happy. There wasn’t much better than that.

“You need real food. We’ll grab an early lunch, dig through some papers, hit the road. I think that job out in Iowa looked promising. Something about a breakfast spot?”

Sam’s smile disappeared in an instant. “I told you, we’re not taking that job.”

Irritation reared its head, but before Dean could snap back, Sam added quietly, “It’s a bed and breakfast, Dean.”

Hotel. Something cold slid down Dean’s back and he shuddered. “Yeah, okay, no. No motels, no hotels, no bed and breakfasts. Though, honestly, bed and breakfasts are probably-“

“No hotels,” Sam reminded him. “The last two were…bad. Bad enough.”

He didn’t need to remind Dean. Dean still had nightmares of Sam being dragged down the hallways of the resort, fingers scrabbling to find purchase in Dean’s hand. Civilians dying right and left in gore and fear. And never mind the Ocean House Hotel with William and Bethany. The less said about that freakshow of a night, the better.

No hotels.

“I think better on a full stomach,” Dean said as he put the car in drive. “Food, Sam.”

“Wouldn’t want to deprive you of your second breakfast.” A beat, then, almost hesitantly, “You’re short enough as it is to qualify for a hobbit, so you might as well eat like one.”

Dean didn’t even pause as he reached over and smacked Sam in the back of his head. When he glanced at his brother, though, Sam’s smile was back, and Dean’s own lips turned up.

He really had missed his little brother. And they were going to stay together now, no matter what.

Sam had to admit, Dean had a knack for finding good places to eat.

The diner was filled with what looked like regulars and locals, always a promising sign. Their waitress, an older woman with gray hair and a sweet smile, took their orders without even writing them down, despite Dean’s addition of extra onions and extra pickles, and Sam’s substitution of grilled chicken instead of fried. The smell coming from the kitchen promised a good home-cooked-style meal of grease and flavor. It felt a lot like home.

He’d hoped once to find a home with Jess, and then with Amelia. But home was a random diner in New Hampshire, or a roadside lobster shack in Maine, or a food truck in Texas. Anywhere that had the Impala and Dean.

Not long after, their food appeared, and they tucked in. While he ate his salad, which was actually good and not completely slathered in dressing, Sam pulled out the local newspaper. Nothing jumped out at him, so he turned to the state one instead. Dean seemed too focused on stuffing as many French fries in his mouth as he could so Sam perused on his own. Like he used to.

It was familiar and yet so different at the same time.

“Man disappears and returns three days later swearing he was abducted by aliens.”

“Not doing aliens again,” Dean muttered around French fries. “World of no.”

The memory flashed through of being soulless and so cavalier about Dean disappearing, and Sam could barely hold back a flinch. Another time where he’d let Dean down. It hadn’t been a choice, being soulless, but that didn’t mean Dean had forgotten. Or, thanks to the knowledge given by that stupid coin, forgiven.

A hand tugged the newspaper free and Sam let it go. His brother caught his gaze over the paper and Dean gave him a knowing, stern, almost angry look. Right. Letting it go, pulling themselves both together and starting anew. Again. How many times they could do it, Sam didn’t know, but as long as Dean was willing, Sam would be, too.

Ironically enough, it was the angry part that Sam felt most comforted by. Because the anger wasn’t aimed at what Sam had done. It was aimed at Sam’s guilt, a silent _cut it out_ order from his big brother. It was reassuring, to know that Dean was still there for him, defending him from even himself.

Dean glanced at the paper and raised an eyebrow. “Cat falls out of fiery apartment and lands nine stories down on its feet?”

In spite of himself, Sam couldn’t help but snicker. “Pretty sure that’s just pure dumb luck, not anything remotely demonic, but you never know.”

He got a grin before Dean took a bite of his burger. For a moment, Sam felt like he was twenty-two and back on the road with Dean for the first time ever. Just the two of them side by side again, taking on the world with his big brother who still ate a burger the same, disgusting way as he always did.

God had he missed Dean.

The waitress stopped at their table, and Dean tensed up. Not in any way that the older woman would’ve noticed, but Sam did, and he turned to greet her, taking the attention away from his brother. “Everythin’ good?” she asked.

“Everything’s great,” Sam assured her. “Could we get some more ketchup?”

“Sure thing, be right back for you boys.”

She headed off, never seeing Dean’s shoulders come down a good inch. “Thanks,” Dean muttered.

It felt odd to be the people-charmer of the two of them, but Sam had spent the better part of a year learning how to navigate the normal world. Dean had spent it fighting monsters. While Dean seemed fine for the most part, there were still times when he looked overwhelmed. Maybe Sam hadn’t been there for him before, but he could be there now. “You looked like you needed more ketchup,” he said, and Dean pinned him with another knowing look, this one saying, _You’re kidding me, right?_ Yeah, he knew Dean hadn’t been thanking him for the condiment. But neither of them wanted to look deeper than that at the moment, and Sam absolutely couldn’t deal with more references to Purgatory. _Let it go, Dean. You promised we’d start new and let it go. Let me help where I can and let the rest of it go._

And, surprisingly enough, Dean did. “Yeah, well. Can’t ever have too much of it.” He took another bite of his burger as if to prove his point, and ketchup, mustard, and what Sam thought was hot sauce came oozing out the back.

Sam wrinkled his nose up. “Nice. Can we, uh, get back to finding a job?”

“You should eat first,” Dean said, mouth full. “Don’t want your salad to get cold. Oh wait.”

Tempted to stick his tongue out, Sam turned back and stabbed another bite of grilled chicken and greens. Nowhere near as good as the farmer’s market that showed up on Sunday mornings, but that was done and over with. Maybe not for good, but for now, that part of life was finished. When he left again, he decided firmly, it would be with Dean. They’d leave this life together, once and for all.

“I just wish they’d stop goin’ up to that house!”

“Cops keep tellin’ ‘em. He didn’t come home?”

“No. His aunt says he never checked in and he kept tellin’ her he wanted to get up to the house, see what there was to see.”

“House is haunted. That’s all there is to it. Always has been.”

“Aw Gayle, that’s just an old story.”

Sam paused, fork suspended above his salad. Across from him, Dean carefully set his burger back down on his plate. Their eyes met, then both glanced at the newspaper that they’d been scouring. Sam gave a snort. So much for the potential jobs.

The waitress, Gayle, came over to top off their coffee, and Sam cleared his throat. “Haunted house?”

She gave a small shrug. “Local house, the Hollins House. Kids keep goin’ up there. It’s the local haunt. There’s been a few disappearances over the years. Enough that people oughta know not to go in there. Ain’t nothin’ in there they need.”

“Aw, they’re just kids,” the man at the counter said. “Tell me you didn’t mess around doin’ things you shouldn’t do.”

“Still, not worth it when they know people disappear. Do somethin’ less dangerous, like drivin’ too fast down Walnut Drive.”

“Can’t do that no more. Too many cops.”

Sam met his brother’s eyes. Dean’s eyebrows went up. _Well? Do we take it?_

It was exactly the sort of case that they used to be really good at. Maybe they could be good at again. He gave a short nod and turned his lips up. _Let’s do it._

Apparently they were still good at conversing without words. Dean met his half grin with a full one of his own and turned to the man and the waitress, charm fully on. “So where is this local haunt?”


	2. The Entry

“’A few disappearances’ my _ass_.”

Dean glanced over at his brother in surprise. Sam was glaring at the computer as if it were possessed and ready to attack him. “Problem?” he asked.

Sam all but snarled and spun the computer around. “Not one, not two, but _forty-seven_ people have disappeared in the house,” he seethed. “In the last _eighty-six_ years.”

That was not a ‘few’. “What the actual hell?” Dean asked. He rose and came over to the computer, glancing the screen over. Sam’s work, as always, was meticulous, and the numbers were there, hidden away in a missing person’s folder that apparently no one had looked at too closely. “And this didn’t ping the radar of the feds? Or the local PD? Or _anyone_?”

“Apparently not.” Sam’s anger was probably half on behalf of those missing, half because if there was anything he hated most, it was shoddy work. “And it’s not just tourists missing or anything like that. It’s local people, too. Age, gender, race, it doesn’t seem to have a preference. You walk into that house, you don’t come back out.”

“So what about the house?” Dean asked. The youngest person missing was a 12-year-old girl, all the way up to a man around 73 years old. Dean was tempted to call the feds himself.

“The Hollins House is a house, worth very little due to the lack of land, built sometime in the mid to late 1800’s.”

Dean listened for more but Sam didn’t continue. “Wait, what? That’s all you’ve got?”

Sam heaved a sigh and shoved the computer away to stand and pace. “I have the realty record online that shows the way the farm was prior to it being divided up and sold in the 1930’s. The house isn’t a historical marker, it’s literally just a house. There’s nothing online about it at all. And the one book that might talk about the history of the place is checked out from the library, due back in four days.”

He threw his hands up in the air, frustration evident. “I have nothing, Dean. We’d be going into this blind. And going in there blind isn’t a way to hunt.”

The alternative that Sam was suggesting was incomprehensible to him. “So what, we just don’t take it on? We don’t have obvious resources on what happened or what to do, we just, what, give up?”

Sam stared at him for a minute before huffing out a bitter laugh. “You’re never going to let it go, are you,” he said, voice empty.

It was clear what Sam meant. Dean swallowed back his instinctive response and fought to focus on the here and now. Sam had chosen him, chosen to get back into hunting. Sam was _here_. And if Dean wanted his brother, that meant he needed to man the hell up and move on. “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Dean said. “You’ve got another idea, I know you do.”

Because Sam didn’t give up. Not really. And he knew that.

_Just gave up on you, _a nasty voice whispered inside of him, and he tried to resolutely shove it down. Sam was here with him now. It wasn’t like Sam had blasted him and Cas to Purgatory himself. He could’ve just as easily been taken with them.

The thought of Sam in Purgatory sent a cold knife of fear through him. He never would’ve been able to protect Sam down there. There were so many things and they never slept, eyes watching and jaws waiting-

“I’m thinking an Ouija board.”

Dean yanked himself back to the present. “Ouija board?” he repeated.

“Yeah. It’s not like there’s a real local legend here. Just a haunted house that people randomly disappear in. We’ll get gossip at best. The only other option to get the story would be to talk to a source: one of the victims.”

Dean made a face. “I don’t like it either,” Sam rushed to tell him, “you _know_ I don’t.”

“They’re desperate measures, Sam,” Dean said. “And you’ll never know what you’ll get.”

“We’re sort of at desperate measures here, though. I mean, how the hell else are we going to find out how they died, or why?”

It sucked, but would probably work. It was just more dark magic that Dean didn’t want to get them involved in, and god only knew what spirit they’d pull out. “They might not be dead,” Dean suggested. “They might just be missing.”

Silence. Dean glanced up at Sam and found him gripping the back of one of the chairs, eyes squeezed shut. He ran back over what he’d said and made a face. Twice in five minutes he’d brought up the one thing he’d promised Sam they wouldn’t talk about again. _Way to show Sam you can let it go. Oh wait, that’s his area of expertise-_

Not fair. He wasn’t being fair at all. He’d let Sam go when Sam had dropped into the Cage with Lucifer and suffered years of untold pain and damage. Damage that had driven him mad and nearly killed him.

Before he could say anything, however, Sam spoke, voice not empty this time but full of resignation. “No resources, no witnesses. No bodies. Where are you supposed to go from there except hope that maybe, just maybe, they’re at peace?”

Dean flinched at the rawness in his voice. “I know you would’ve done it differently if you’d been in my shoes, you’ve already told me that,” Sam continued, and he sounded as if he were choking on each word. “I screwed up. I got it. But I seriously had _nothing_, Dean. When I’d exhausted what resources I had available to me, and every single one of them pointed to you being dead and gone, and not in Hell, what else was I supposed to do?”

_Dig deeper, _Dean thought, but that wasn’t fair. Sam hadn’t just waltzed out of Roman’s offices and gotten into bed with Amelia. Actually, now that he thought about it, he had no idea how Sam had gotten out of Roman’s offices, or gotten the car, or any of it. Sam hadn’t offered, and Dean had never really asked.

First was doing what he’d insisted to Sam: that they were brothers, and they were going to move past this. Above all else, Sam needed his big brother. He looked tired, standing there with his hair hanging around his face. He looked defeated. It left something sour in Dean’s stomach, because Sam hadn’t looked like that when he’d first seen him again. He’d been happy. And at that moment, Dean would’ve done just about anything to see a glimmer of that happiness on Sam’s face again.

He moved forward and rested a tentative hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Maybe I would’ve done something different,” Dean said quietly. “But you lived long enough for me to find you when I got out. And we’re back together again, you and me. I can’t ask for much more than that, Sammy.”

Slowly Sam raised his head to look at him. Dean met his gaze evenly, willing him to see the truth there. They’d had a lot of bumpy patches as brothers over the past few years, but they always came back together, were always stronger together. That’s what mattered.

After a moment, Sam cleared his throat. “Ouija board?”

“Let’s give the house a scan first,” Dean said. “Maybe talk to the locals around the area. But yeah, let’s see if we can find the old Ouija board in the trunk. Better to have it with us than not.”

Just then, Sam’s phone rang. Sam glanced at the number, frowned, but answered it. “Hello?”

Dean watched as Sam’s eyes widened, and the hint of a smile came to his face. “That would be great,” he said, just as Dean was entertaining the notion that it was Amelia calling. “We’ll be right over, thank you.”

When he hung up, his smile grew a little more. “Library,” he said. “Someone returned the book early, and I was next in line.”

A resource. _Finally. _“Library first. Maybe pick the librarian’s brain?” And maybe her other…assets. Dean grinned at the thought.

Sam just gave him a knowing look as he grabbed his jacket. “Yeah, you enjoy chatting up Roger. I’m sure he can tell you all about volunteering as a senior, judging from his voice.”

Ouch. “Way to ruin a dream, Sam,” he grumbled as they headed out. “Way to ruin a dream.”

The book was, perhaps, one of the worst ever written. Sam wondered for the tenth time how some people managed to get published. Even Chuck’s writing hadn’t been this bad.

Dean glanced over as he drove, making his way towards the house. “Problem?” he asked.

“Yeah, but mostly grammatical. ‘Arbitrarily accidentally demised’ – seriously?” Maybe he should take a turn at trying to write if this sort of crap could get published.

Dean wrinkled up his nose and turned right down a small road surrounded by trees on both sides. The sudden shade made reading the book difficult in the approaching darkness. “Was that a sentence?” he asked. “Because English and I don’t get along well but even I think that’s crap.”

Then he paused. “Wait. ‘Demised’?”

“Yeah, the owner of the Hollins House, Benjamin Winston, died of an apparent heart attack. Says that he’d had a son, Daniel, who had gone missing under ‘suspicious circumstances’ and was never found.” Sam made a face. He hated when it was kids.

“I hate when kids get involved,” Dean muttered.

“Yeah, but I don’t think Winston killed his kid.” Sam glared at the page again and tried to make sense of the poor language. “They don’t say when Daniel went missing, just that they found his dad dead of a presumed heart attack. Another man was found dead just outside the front doors and looked as if he’d been worked over, but they never found a weapon on Winston.”

Dean put two and two together and made a face. “Aw hell. You think the kid is the spirit?”

“I mean, it makes sense. He’s the one who disappeared and was never found again. And everyone else has just gone missing, too.” Most children spirits weren’t truly malicious, just lost. They wanted the simple things, like not being left all alone. Some of them were twisted by other elements, but most children acted like, well, children. It never ceased to hurt whenever they found a child spirit in need of moving on. He remembered one case where the spirit of a little boy had come to them instead of them having to hunt him down, and the boy had begged for his parents. Sending him on had been easy, yet one of the most difficult things Sam could remember doing. They’d been silent all night after sending him on his way.

Sam really hoped this wouldn’t be a case like that.

“So two dead at the scene and the boy missing. Any pictures?”

Sam shook his head and refocused on the text. “Only picture is of the house back in its heyday. It’s bigger than I’d expected, especially as Winston was an apparent pillar of the town and a farmer, rallying the cause for prohibition. Or, uh, at least I think that’s what it says. ‘The man himself doubled down upon anti-prohibition speakings and tasked others to do samewise.’”

Dean turned down another road and slowed down as he hit a dirt road. “Wow. That is some pretty crap writing.”

“Tell me about it.” More trees took away what little sunshine was left, and Sam sighed. There was no other mention of the other man, only of Daniel having been particularly fond of marbles. “Got a few hints here about the boy, things we might be able to use with the Ouija board.” It made his skin crawl to think about using it, particularly since the last time he’d done so, it had been to speak with Dean. But they had no other recourse.

“Bring the book,” Dean told him. He was driving uncharacteristically slow, and Sam frowned. Dean just shrugged at his look. “Guy at the diner mentioned lots of cops on Walnut Drive. Last thing I need is to get pulled over for speeding.”

Fair enough. “Plan?”

“Get in, do the Ouija board, get out. Or, better yet, get in, identify the source of the problem, take care of said problem, and be back for the Star Wars marathon airing tonight at 1am.” He grinned as he said it, and it actually met his eyes. He waggled his eyebrows at Sam. “C’mon, popcorn, Chinese food, Han Solo kicking ass…?”

He wasn’t telling, he was genuinely _offering_. It was such a big brother thing to do that for a minute, Sam could barely find his voice. When he did, though, it was with a wide grin. “I’ll make the popcorn. Last time, you burned the hell out of it and almost set off the smoke detector.”

“Spoil sport,” Dean muttered good-naturedly. He made a careful turn into a path that was mostly covered in tall grass and grimaced in a not so good-natured way. “I’m gonna be picking grass out of her undercarriage for weeks.”

Sam began to reply, then froze. The house stood in front of them, sun fading behind it, casting it in an eerie glow. Shuttered windows matched old crime scene tape in stating very clearly _stay out. _Three chimneys gave the appearance of horns, and everything looked appropriately worn-down and broken, just waiting for one good stiff wind to knock it over despite the brick structure.

It wasn’t the house that had made him stop in sudden horror, though, but the bopping flashlight beams entering the front door.

Dean slammed to a stop and threw himself out of the driver’s side, cursing a blue streak. “Get the bags,” he ordered.

Sam barely managed to shut his door as he grabbed the bags while Dean dug for flashlights and the Ouija board in the back seat. “Which ones?” he asked frantically, casting his eye over the bags in the trunk.

“All of them!”

Well, couldn’t argue with that. Sam grabbed the three bags and slammed the trunk shut. He tossed one to Dean and took the flashlight that Dean offered him as they ran full tilt towards the house. The last of the flashlight beams disappeared inside the old wooden doors. Sam pinched his lips and put on a new burst of speed, beating Dean by a few seconds.

He slammed the door open and heard several gasps and one high-pitched shriek. His flashlight roamed over a few of the faces, and his shoulders dropped several inches. Teens, three boys, two girls. Just stupid teens doing stupid teenage things.

“Police,” he snapped. “Everybody out of the house, _now_.”

One of the boys, shoulders and body like a linebacker, raised his hands in a friendly manner and grinned. “Aw c’mon, just let us poke around a bit!”

“I told you we’d get caught, Thomas,” one of the girls, a tiny blonde in an oversized hoodie, told him irritably. “Wanda, come on, let’s just go do something else.”

“Yes, anything else,” Dean said, coming up behind him. He edged around Sam and gave him a terse nod, and Sam gave one in reply. Let Dean put the fear of god into the kids; he had a door to secure. He kept both bags over his shoulders and put his knee and foot outside the main door. If it were just them, he wouldn’t have bothered, but with teens and possible victims at hand, the last thing they needed was to get locked in. He reached into one of the bags and pulled his shotgun out.

The other girl, long dark hair perfectly wavy and makeup done just so, tossed said hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “There _is_ nothing else to do in this godforsaken town. What, head twenty miles east just to wander the Walmart? Please. Besides rolling in the hay at the nearby farms which, honestly, even that gets boring after a while,” and she sent a pointed look at Thomas who gaped at her, “there’s nothing else to do here.”

“I didn’t even want to come,” a quivering voice added, and Sam watched as a rail-thin boy raised his hand timidly. His glasses didn’t even look like they fit right, and he had his shoulders hunched up to his ears.

“No one _wanted_ you to come, nerd,” Thomas spat. “But you didn’t want to be left behind, either.”

“I don’t have a car!” the kid stage-whispered, eyes looking everywhere. “You guys were just gonna ditch me in the diner parking lot!”

The last kid, tall, athletic, and definitely one of the popular kids just by looks alone, surprised Sam by stepping in between the nerdy kid and Thomas and glaring at Thomas. “That’s enough, Thomas. Lay off of Aidan. Kristen’s right, we shouldn’t be here.” He looked up at Dean and winced. “We’re just going to go now, all right?”

“They’re not even cops!” Thomas complained, and both Dean and Sam stiffened. “I know all the troopers, okay Chris? I’ve ridden with my uncle dozens of times and I’ve never seen these two before.”

Crap. “State police,” Dean said and glared at Thomas. “You want to ride with us? We can put you in the back.”

Wanda rolled her eyes again and sighed. “Fine, let’s just go. Whatever.”

The door suddenly slammed into Sam’s knee so hard that he stumbled away from the doorframe, the weight of the bags dragging him to the floor. He gasped and grabbed at his knee and the thunderous pain that was coursing through it.

“Easy, Sam, breathe.”

A hand gently rested on his knee, but thankfully the pain was already abating. “M’all right,” he managed. Dean still didn’t let go, instead sliding the bags off his shoulder, allowing him to sit up. “Dean, the door-“

Dean reached beyond him and grabbed the handle, trying to turn it, then pushing the door. His face said it all: they were locked in.

“Oh my god,” Aidan said, eyes wide in his head. “Did, did you shut the door or did…?”

“It’s not _haunted_,” Wanda snipped. “It’s just a local legend about the haunted bed and breakfast. God, Aidan.”

Sam froze. Dean had gone equally still, and slowly his brother turned towards the teens. “Bed and breakfast?” he asked, and his voice was dangerously low.

Oh god. It made sense, why the house was so big for a farmer, why it had featured in the book when there was no historical marker for it. It had been business for the little town.

“Uh, yeah,” Chris said after a moment. “The old bed and breakfast. It’s why there isn’t another in town, it’s just the two little motels. After this one went so south, no one would even consider staying at a bed and breakfast in Tamworth.”

Dean glared at Sam, and Sam shook his head. “Dean, it wasn’t in the book-“

“Oh god, that really bad local history book?” Kristen said. “No, you won’t find anything in there about it being a bed and breakfast. Believe me. We’ve all had to read it for history. It’s horrible.”

After a moment, Dean stood and reached down for Sam, but Sam was already pulling himself up to his feet. The last thing he needed was to be the little brother who couldn’t hold his own, especially since he’d missed the bed and breakfast part of research. This is why he hated going in blind to a job. They could’ve been better prepared, they could’ve done something, _anything_.

Instead they were sitting ducks with five teens and a spirit who already wanted them locked inside. At least they had all their gear this time. Improvement over the last two hotels they’d done.

He carefully looked anywhere else except at his pissed off brother and instead focused on the teens. Thomas moved past them and moved the door handle, then stopped, frowned, and tried wiggling it again. “It’s jammed,” he said. “C’mon Chris, we can break this down.” He put his shoulder against it and then backed away, rubbing at his arm and glaring at the door. “What is that, solid oak?”

“You won’t get out,” Sam told him. “We need to stay together now.”

“Yeah, because we wouldn’t be in this situation if you’d listened to us in the first place and gotten out when we told you to,” Dean said, speaking for the first time since he’d asked about the bed and breakfast. Sam couldn’t read his tone and he refused to try and look at Dean to read his face. Just more anger would be his guess.

Kristen crossed her arms. “You’re not cops, are you?”

“Is that…an Ouija board?” Wanda asked, glancing at one of the bags that was partially open. She let out a heaving sigh. “Oh my god, you guys are ghost chasers. Like those Ghostfacer losers.”

“We are _not_ like them,” Dean snapped. Sam shut his eyes and resisted hanging his head. Tonight couldn’t get any worse.

Well. That was completely untrue, and he realized that as soon as he let out his next breath and saw it mist in front of him.

Their spirit had shown up.

He glanced around the room for the first time since they’d gotten inside. Dark and gloomy, it looked like any entryway of a house. There was nothing that said it was a bed and breakfast, no desk at the front, nothing except a few rotten chairs tipped over and a rug that he could see the wooden floor through. There was an impressive set of stairs leading to the second floor, but the paint on the stairs was peeling and mostly gone. Everything was covered in cobwebs and dust. A few windows next to the front doors, nothing except the doorway to the right and the hallway behind the stairs. He glanced straight up and saw nothing but an old, faded ceiling.

This wasn’t defensible. They couldn’t keep the kids safe here: god only knew where the ghost could take them. They needed somewhere smaller. And fast.

Dean had come to that same conclusion, apparently. “Everyone through here,” he ordered, pointing to the doorway to the right, and thankfully they all headed into the room, albeit with lots of grumbling. Sam grabbed the two bags and followed up behind them.

The ceiling was almost close enough that Sam could touch it without standing on his tip-toes – stupid older houses with nothing but short people living in them – but it was a smaller room. An old pianoforte sat in the corner, the keys stained and mostly missing. The walls were otherwise bare, save for a mirror that was cracked, and Sam turned away from it. The wooden floor beneath his feet creaked ominously, and he gingerly shifted his weight to his good leg. At least his breath wasn’t misting anymore. He glanced through the doorway and saw nothing, but his hand stayed on the trigger to his shotgun all the same.

A familiar presence at his side made him tense up in anticipation of what would be said, but the only thing Dean said was a quiet, “You okay?”

Sam nodded tersely. “I can run on it if I have to,” he said. “It’s a minor irritation at best.” It would be swollen by morning, if they made it that far, but right now that was the least of Sam’s concerns.

Nothing from Dean except a small sigh that made Sam tense up even more. At this point, he was sort of hoping Daniel would show, if just to make things easier. The silence of the house was starting to unnerve him, the silence from his brother all the more so. “I can do this,” he said, if just to break the silence. “Just because I missed the bed and breakfast-“

“There wasn’t any way you could’ve known that,” Dean said, as if he’d been waiting for an opening. “Seriously Sam, it wasn’t in the damn book, and that’s all we’ve had. We went in blind, that’s what we get for going in blind. It’s two stories and not near as big as the other two hotels we did, and we’ve got a good idea of who the ghost is. Already way better than the other two.”

It wasn’t at all what Sam had expected, and he finally glanced at his brother in surprise. Dean’s face held frustration, but it wasn’t at Sam. “You sure you’re okay?” Dean asked again.

Sam finally nodded and answered honestly, “It’s just tender. Not that I think I can baby it tonight, but the more I walk it, the better I might be, so there’s that.”

“So now what? You gonna let us watch you talk to a ghost?”

The sneer in Thomas’s voice made them both turn and glare at the teen. He didn’t look fazed in the slightest, just bored. “C’mon, seriously, you gave us a good scare, locking the door the way you did, but let us out,” he continued.

If only they could. “I didn’t lock the door,” Sam said, slowly and patiently, “something else did. And until we figure out where the spirit is, no one’s going to be able to leave.”

“Uh, I’d listen to them,” Aidan said, nervously glancing at the shotgun before scooting back behind Kristen. “Guys with guns probably should be listened to.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re probably the only thing between you and going missing tonight, so I’d stay close.”

“You’re serious,” Chris said, eyes wide. “You seriously believe the ghost story.”

“Do you know how many people have gone missing?” Sam asked him. “Because it’s a lot. Including a kid this past week.”

“Travis,” Chris told him, biting his lip. “Friend of ours. He’d mentioned that he wanted to come up to the house and I figured…”

It felt like a lightbulb going off. Sure, the dare-seeking kids were here for the thrills, but he hadn’t understood why the level-headed kids had come into the house until now. “You came looking for him,” he breathed. Aidan hunched in even further on himself. “You all came looking for him.”

“Hey, I’ve wanted to get into this house for a while,” Thomas said with a shrug. “Figured we’d find Travis hidden up here having a ball at everyone else’s expense. Maybe get a little…_alone_ time if there were any beds left, right Wanda?” He turned and leered at the girl.

Except she wasn’t there. Sam immediately counted off and found only four teens in front of him. _Shit_.

“Wanda?” Dean called, immediately turning towards the doorway. “Wanda!”

“Wanda, come on, this isn’t funny,” Kristen said, glaring at the empty foyer. Sam followed his brother out and glanced around.

The entryway was empty and silent. Wanda was gone.

“Wanda!” Thomas called. “C’mon babe, where are you?”

Suddenly a scream went up, so full of terror that it made the hairs on the back of his arms and neck stand on end. It echoed throughout the entire house, filling the air and making him want to cover his ears, and then-

It stopped, just as suddenly as it had started. Silence fell again.

Sam swallowed hard and glanced helplessly at Dean. Barely in the house for less than half an hour and one person had already gone missing.


	3. The Black Ceiling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting to get deeper in. Still not sure how many chapters but I promise the last bit will be posted on Halloween!

The silence following Wanda’s scream didn’t last long. Then suddenly, all of the teens started talking at once. The sound was cacophonous and Dean flinched, hand twitching around his shotgun.

Sam immediately stepped between the teens and Dean. Despite the broken look he’d given Dean a few moments before, he was steady and solid in facing the teens. “Just stop a minute,” Sam instructed. “One at a time.”

“What did you do with Wanda?” Thomas demanded. “Huh?”

“Oh my god Thomas _stop_,” Kristen said. The sullen teen actually looked rattled but she managed to still glare at the boy. “They were right here with us the entire time. They didn’t do anything to her. She went off doing her own stupid Wanda thing and now she’s gone.”

“Just like the rest of them,” Aidan said, shivering. He adjusted his glasses and peeked at every corner of the room. “Just like we’re all going to disappear.”

“No one is disappearing,” Sam told them. “And we’re going to find Wanda. We’re not giving up until we find her.”

_That’s a change in tune, _Dean thought bitterly, then immediately shook himself. Sam was right: it seemed he couldn’t let it go. For both of their sakes, he had to.

It wasn’t until Sam went tense beside him that he realized he’d muttered his first thought out loud. “Change in tune?” Aidan asked, eyes going even wider. “Do, do you usually leave people behind?”

Sam full on flinched and Dean stepped in front of his brother. “Sam doesn’t leave people behind. Neither of us do. So stay close while we find Wanda.”

He glanced over at Sam but his brother was resolutely not looking at him. Again. He wanted to curse, wanted to punch something because dammit, he was supposed to be pulling them together, not pushing them apart. He’d been so frustrated about the damn bed and breakfast thing and Sam had immediately read it as Dean being angry at him. Not anywhere close.

Because Sam had been right. Going in to a hunt blind wound up bad. Every time.

A creaking sound made them all freeze, but nothing happened. “Okay, I think the rest of us need to get out of here,” Thomas said, heading for the windows. “Leave this to the professionals.”

Chris glared at him. “I’m not leaving without Travis or Wanda. We came here to find our friend, not abandon two of them.”

“It won’t work, anyway,” Dean said. Thomas grunted and tried opening the window, then rearing back and kicking the glass. Nothing happened except for the satisfying image of Thomas hopping and making pained noises while clutching his foot. Dean rolled his eyes.

“We’re locked down,” Sam said quietly. “We won’t get out until we get rid of the spirit.”

“So there is a ghost?” Aidan asked.

Kristen shook her head. “Seriously, are we on camera right now? Some massive prank? Because pranks are supposed to be funny.”

“Yeah, well, this prank is over,” Thomas said. He grabbed a nearby chair and brought it up to hurl at the window.

Dean let out a snort and suddenly felt the room drop in temperature. Shit. “Wait!” he shouted at the same time Sam did.

The chair never reached the window. Thomas suddenly went flying back to skid along the floor, ass first. The chair hit the ground with a loud thud. Dean hurried over towards the teen, Sam on his heels. The teen looked stunned but unhurt. “You hurt?” Dean demanded for confirmation. “Thomas!”

“N-No,” he said shakily. “Just my rear, I think. What, what was that?”

“That would be the spirit,” Sam told him. “He doesn’t want us to leave.”

No, it looked like Daniel wanted more playmates. Dean stood and glanced around. At least Daniel hadn’t been overly violent about it. He could’ve slammed Thomas into the wall, but all he’d wanted was for him to not leave.

Maybe that meant that they could get out. If the spirit was all about discouraging leaving, then that meant there was a way out. Somehow. He tucked the idea away and dug into his bag for the EMF. The machine didn’t make a sound, as silent as the rest of the house. He let out a noisy sigh just because he could.

“Gone for now,” he said, tucking the EMF back into his bag but leaving it on. He’d hear it hopefully before the spirit came back for them. This in and out thing was starting to unsettle him. He’d never had a ghost flit in and out like this so easily. “We need to find Wanda, find the ghost, get the hell out of dodge.”

“I’m all for that,” Thomas said enthusiastically. Apparently being tossed on his ass had helped change his mind about the whole ghost thing. One less teen to fight.

The others looked just as rattled. Good. That meant taciturn, and that meant obedient. “At least they believe us,” Sam muttered, apparently on the same wavelength. Even when they were off, they were still more together than anyone else. Now he just had to prove that to Sam, save five teens (not four, they were going to find Wanda), smoke a ghost, and get them all out of there alive.

Piece of cake.

“So why are we going to find the ghost?” Chris asked. “Shouldn’t we be staying away?”

“Far away,” Aidan added.

Sam shook his head. He still wouldn’t look at Dean. “We need to find the spirit in order to send him on. We do that, he’ll let us go. And people won’t disappear anymore.”

Kristen crossed her arms again. “You keep saying ‘him’. Like you know who he is.”

“An educated guess,” Dean said. “Kid who disappeared first, name of Daniel Winston.”

“Daniel Winston? Like the Winstons who used to own the Hollins House?” Aidan asked, his face lighting up like a damn Christmas tree. Apparently his nerd had overtaken his fear. “Daniel was his son, right?”

“Wait,” Thomas said, and he sounded appalled. “You mean I got my ass handed to me by a _kid_?”

More alarmingly, a kid had taken Wanda. A kid had taken a shit ton of people, and Dean still had no idea what had happened to them. You’d think that over forty people being taken somewhere would eventually start causing the smell of decay and rot. Because Sam was right: they were dead.

Sam had been right about all of this from the get-go. And Dean had thought his brother was out of touch with hunting.

He stepped into the main entryway, flashlight moving everywhere. The moon had risen and was starting to peek through the windows, providing a little more light. He’d take what he could get. But nothing poked out at him, nothing stuck out except dust and cobwebs.

No Wanda. And god how he didn’t want to start trying to hunting for a spirit with a bunch of kids tagging along but they didn’t have a choice. He glanced uneasily at the stairs that led up to the dark second story. He shone a light up at the top, unable to help himself, but he saw absolutely nothing but the faint outline of a doorway beyond the stairs.

Work the case. If they could find Daniel, chances were that they’d find Wanda. And if Daniel hadn’t killed Wanda yet, they could still save her. If they could figure Daniel out, they could get this done. No night of nightmares.

He spun back towards Sam and caught his brother’s gaze. Sam startled but Dean refused to let him back down now. “C’mon Sam,” he said. “Give me that big brain of yours. How old was Daniel? Does it say?”

Sam blinked for a minute before he started digging for the book, but surprisingly, Chris spoke up first. “He was a kid. He’s got a marker up in the family cemetery next to his mom and dad. I don’t remember how old, but not a lot.”

“I think he was eleven,” Aidan offered hesitantly. “I mean, with the math I did with the dates on the headstone-“

“Wait, you went up there?” Thomas asked. He looked impressed in spite of himself. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Addie.”

Kristen glared at him and stepped in front of Aidan. “He has a name, _asshole. _Quit picking on him, it’s not sexy to be a bully.”

Thomas held his hands up in mock surrender and Chris stepped between them both. “Okay, enough. Tom, knock it off. We need to find Wanda.”

It was nice to have a civilian who could keep their head and manage the not-so-calm civilians. Right now, Chris and Kristen were top of Dean’s list for Most Helpful Civilian. They weren’t Sam, but hey, he’d take what he could get.

Sam shoved the book back into the bag and stepped around the squabbling teens to join Dean in the entryway. Even better yet, he met Dean’s gaze, albeit with what looked like extreme reluctance, but Dean met his gaze without censure. “Talk to me, Sammy,” he said, pitching his voice low enough so the teens couldn’t hear him. “Give me the timeline.”

Because if anyone could see the people beyond the spirits, it was Sam. He’d managed it at the Ocean House Hotel with a rampaging psychopath of a poltergeist. If he could do that, Dean was pretty convinced he could see the humanity in anyone.

He didn’t miss the fact that at his nickname, Sam straightened up a little. _Atta boy. _“So Daniel went missing, maybe played a game of hide and seek that went really wrong,” Sam said. “He got stuck somewhere, couldn’t get out. Dies…somehow. Suffocates, maybe.”

“Or maybe painfully, given the scream we just heard,” Dean pointed out. Both of them made a face at the thought of a child dying painfully. “Either way, he’s, what, taking others now?”

Sam shrugged. It all sounded right, but something about it still screamed _wrong_ to Dean. From the look on Sam’s face, his brother felt much the same way.

“What do you mean ‘went really wrong’?” Aidan asked hesitantly. Apparently the teens had decided to eavesdrop.

Dean rolled his eyes while Sam stepped further into the main hall. With one eye on his brother, Dean turned to the teens. “What do you think?” he asked. “You don’t become a spirit by dying happily.”

Aidan went white. Even Thomas looked taken aback, and Chris looked heartbroken. Kristen was desperately trying to not look affected, but she’d moved closer to Chris and Thomas all the same.

Silence from the main room drew Dean’s instant attention, but Sam was still there, flashlight focused up at the ceiling. He finally moved it towards the corners and slowly moved across the wall. Dean jerked his head towards the main room, not moving until all of the teens had huddled in the entryway. Only then did he join Sam in surveying the entry hall. “You think he’s somewhere here?” he murmured. “This is where his dad and the other guy were found, right?” But honestly, where the hell could a kid go hiding and not be found after he died?

Sam made a face, and for some reason, he kept glancing up. “What?” Dean asked, irritated that he couldn’t read Sam’s expression.

“I don’t know. I just…there’s something wrong with the room. Something’s off.”

Following Sam’s flashlight beam up, Dean frowned. The ceiling looked like a normal ceiling to him, but now that Sam had called his attention to it, Dean forced himself to look farther. Was that a bulge in the ceiling? _Rot_, his mind told him, his year in construction already pointing out how to cut it out and repair the damage. In fact, he could see spots of black where the rot was coming through the paint.

“You mean the mold and rot?” he asked.

Sam glanced at him, brow furrowed. “What rot?”

They both glanced back up again and Dean froze. The rot had grown, black spreading like pus in a wound. It oozed in a way that only one thing could.

Ectoplasm.

When he glanced at his brother, Dean found him staring with horrified eyes. “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Sam stammered. “That means-“

“He’s a poltergeist,” Dean said grimly. “Which means he probably killed his dad and that other guy.” And most likely Wanda, most definitely Travis. Never mind the other people he’d killed by potentially stuffing them into the walls or wherever he’d gotten stuck himself. He shut his eyes tight for a minute and then forced himself to refocus. Four teens he could still save. “We gotta find Daniel and now. Start banging on walls.”

“Wait, what?” Chris asked, stunned. “You mean there’s a body in the wall?”

“Probably a lot of bodies,” Sam said, wincing. “Sorry. But the sooner we can find him, the better for everyone else. And we might be able to save Wanda, too.”

“Wanda!”

Dean spun at Aidan’s cry and stared. There, standing beneath the ectoplasm in the corner, was Wanda. She didn’t seem harmed or cut up or anything, and she sure as hell wasn’t in the walls. She stared ahead like she was transfixed, or perhaps paralyzed by fear. Her entire body trembled, but there was no terror in her face.

He was walking towards her before he could even think about it, and he could feel Sam right behind him. “Wanda,” he called, and even he winced at his harsh tone. He used to be good at this whole people thing.

Thankfully, Sam stepped in. He caught Dean’s arm and tapped fingers twice against his bicep. It was reassurance that Dean wasn’t sure he deserved but it did help him refocus. “Wanda, hey, are you okay?” Sam said. “Wanda?”

If Sam hadn’t caught him and held him back, they would’ve wound up in the resulting explosion. One moment, Wanda stood there, eyes vacant and body shaking, the next, her eyes glowed and her entire body lit up. Dean grabbed hold of Sam’s wrist and yanked them further back as Wanda sparked and flared like she was being struck by lightning over and over again. Her eyes glowed blue and white as she lit up from the inside like a roman candle. Somewhere behind them, Dean could hear screams.

The heat from the teen's sparking body forced Dean to turn away, flinching, feeling like he’d go up in flames. From the corner of his eye he could see her arms, still jerking and shaking, with black lines snaking down them, burning through her. Scorch marks. The smell of burnt flesh filled the room and he forced himself not to gag. But the light grew brighter and brighter and he couldn’t even see, couldn’t hear anything except for the lightning that kept sparking-

In an instant he was turned and pulled away, and a familiar body kept him buffeted from the light. The light felt hot even with Sam behind him and that meant Sam was in the line of fire. He twisted desperately, trying to get them both away, and then-

The light was gone.

Slowly Dean opened his eyes. The four teens were hidden back in a corner by the front door, all of them staring behind Dean. He turned around, Sam instinctively moving with him. Together they stared at the corner where Wanda had been.

She was gone. The only thing left of her was a charred black circle where she’d stood. No blood, no clothes, nothing except the blackened wood.

Sam’s hand had almost a death-grip on Dean’s arm, and Dean gently tugged it away. “Sorry,” Sam apologized, wincing when Dean did. “But what the _hell_?”

“That’s not in the wall,” Chris said, sounding shaken. “Like, she wasn’t in the wall like you thought, right?’

Which left them at ground zero. Who the hell knew where she’d been prior to that. “Shit,” Dean muttered.

“Yeah,” Sam said tightly. “Me too.”

It wasn’t enough that the kid had taken Wanda, but to fry her like that too? Maybe that’s how he’d killed his dad, a simple electrical charge that had gone wrong. The next one had resulted in the other man’s death, the guy they’d found outside. Did that mean he’d hidden near electrical stuff? Did they even _have_ electrical stuff whenever Daniel had died?

Oh god. All of those people who’d disappeared, they hadn’t disappeared. Dean felt his eyes widen as he stared at the dark circle on the ceiling again. The ectoplasm had receded for the most part, but the original black mark of rot was still there. “_Shit_.”

“What?” Sam asked immediately. “Dean?”

“He did that to all of them,” Dean said. His stomach rolled. “Daniel killed all of those people just like that. How many people went missing, Sam?”

Sam swallowed hard. “Forty-seven,” he said softly. “Forty-eight with Wanda.”

A guy in his 70’s. A twelve-year-old girl.

Dean snarled, suddenly furious. “Everyone stays together,” he snapped. “We’re going body-hunting. Then we’ll fry the kid and we can all get the hell out of-“

The ground disappeared. He thought for half a second that he’d fallen except he was moving distinctly sideways. “_Dean_!” he heard Sam scream, but he had no air in him to call back. Something cold had a grip on his arms, frigid where Sam’s touch had been warm, and he thought he hit the wall, but that didn’t make sense, because if he’d hit the wall, he’d be out.

Then he really hit something and everything went black.


	4. The Hole in the Wall

For a minute, Sam froze, unable to move, think, _breathe_. Dean had been thrown, Dean was _gone_.

It was that thought that finally enabled him to find his legs. He threw down the bags in the middle of the room and quickly grabbed Dean’s bag that had fallen when he’d been taken. The EMF reader inside didn’t so much as squeal. The spirit was gone, too.

“Take that,” he nodded towards the bags. “If you feel cold or can see your breath, say something, because it's the spirit. And stay together.” Orders given, he raced towards the wall where Dean had gone through. The hole wasn’t big but big enough, and beyond it was nothing but dark. “Dean-!”

He nearly tripped over one of the teens and slammed to a halt. “Move,” Sam told her, but Kristen shook her head. “I’m only going to ask once more-“

“It wasn’t a kid,” she said. Sam frowned, trying to switch gears away from _DeanDeanDean _and figure out what she was saying. She rolled her eyes and scowled at him. “The ghost. You said it was a kid.”

It was enough to make him stop, if just for a second, because that didn’t make sense. “You mean it wasn’t Daniel?” he asked, and then the other question came to mind. “Wait, you _saw _him?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she insisted. “He was behind Wanda while she…you know. But it wasn’t a kid. It was some old guy with frizzy Einstein hair, a big old bald patch, and these weird round glasses that looked like Harry Potter’s.”

Sam froze. No, it, it had to be Daniel, because if it wasn’t Daniel, then-

Then he was back at square one. Just like over a year ago, where dead end had met dead end and he’d spiraled out into a world of anxiety and fear because Dean was gone and he had nothing to start with.

And now the spirit had taken Dean god knew where, leaving Sam alone with nothing to go on-

Stop. Focus. He couldn’t let Dean down again. He _couldn’t_.

Thomas cleared his throat, stepping beside Kristen, effectively blocking Sam’s path. “So you’re gonna get us out of here, right? Because I mean, it killed Wanda and now it’s taken your brother so-“

“_Move_,” Sam growled. Thomas backed up immediately and Sam stalked past him. Like ducklings they followed, chastened into not wandering off, but Sam couldn’t have given two shits if they stayed or ran.

Because if they’d seen an older man, then Daniel wasn’t their ghost. Which meant it could be anyone and god knew where this one could be buried, or when he’d died, or anything. Maybe he’d taken Daniel all those years ago and hadn’t stopped taking people since.

He needed Dean, now more than ever.

He started forward towards the wall that Dean had been thrown through. The hole was big enough, but the room inside was dark and dusty. “Dean!” he shouted. Nothing.

“Woah, no, come on,” Thomas said when Sam started kicking at the hole. “What are you doing?”

“Getting my brother back,” Sam said tightly. He kicked again and the wall gave some more. “Dean!”

Still nothing, and there wasn’t enough light for Sam to see inside. He shoved the flashlight in as best he could and peered around the handle. It looked like a kitchen, wooden counter in disrepair, cobwebs and dust everywhere. Everything had a layer of grime on it, including the brick walls with broken plaster piled across the floor. The ice box was worn and rusted. A small wood stove still sat against the wall, but the flooring around it was all discolored. Like something else had been there and now it was gone.

Like Dean. Sam gritted his teeth and kicked the wall again. “Dean!” he shouted.

He suddenly found himself thrown, but to his surprise, it wasn’t away from the hole, it was _into_ the hole. Cries from the teens echoed around him and he could’ve sworn he felt someone else try to grab his ankle, but it was too late. Wood pulled at his jacket as he passed through into the kitchen at a stunning speed, and without thinking he reached out for the nearest thing he could grab hold of. Something hard and cold met his fingers, and he was let go of so fast he hit the ground with a bang. He could’ve sworn he heard a snarl but by the time he could breathe again, the house was silent once more.

His heart pounded at a sickening, too-fast pace, and he swallowed past the pain that radiated from his chest at the sudden fall. Nothing tried to grab at him again, though. Slowly he pulled himself up to his knees, wincing in pain the entire way. He’d managed to hold on to his shotgun, somehow, though his fingers felt sore from gripping so hard. He glanced at what was in his other hand, what he’d grabbed, and wasn’t at all surprised to find it was the metal stove. The apparently iron stove. Iron worked on everything.

Well. There’d been that one time several years ago in the Ocean House Hotel, but this spirit wasn’t at William’s level. He didn’t think so, at least. God he hoped not.

Footsteps made him jerk around, but it was just the teens following him through the now much larger hole. “Are you okay?” Aidan asked anxiously. “We, we tried to grab you-“

So they had tried to save him. It was more than he’d anticipated from the teens, and he was unexpectedly touched. “I will be when I find my brother,” Sam said, trying to gentle his voice. Still, Dean wasn’t here in the kitchen. Then where the hell had his brother gone? Where was the other hole?

“You’re sort of like a broken record, anyone ever tell you that?” Thomas said snidely, and Sam was in his face a second later. The teen took a step back, eyes wide as Sam loomed over him with his full height.

Not scaring the kid. Probably the sane thing to do. But Sam hadn’t been sane in a long time and what was the point of starting now? “My brother is our best chance of getting out of this,” Sam said, voice low and dangerous. “This is the guy that I trust with my life, no questions asked.” Probably couldn’t be said for the other way around, but it wasn’t the first time Sam had had to earn his brother’s trust back. “And believe me when I say there is nothing I wouldn’t do to get him back.”

Thomas gulped and gave a brief nod. Partially terrorized, not completely. It would have to do for right now.

Sam rolled his eyes and turned to the other teens. Aidan had what looked like Dean’s bag in his hand, and he appeared to be dragging it. Not a surprise given what a beanpole the kid was, but to be fair, that bag was _heavy_. “Don’t lose that,” Sam ordered. “Everybody else, fan out. We need to find Dean before the spirit comes back.”

“How come he threw your brother anyway?” Chris asked, obediently choosing a corner. Kristen wandered towards the ice box, warily keeping her distance from it. Thomas quickly took the opposite part of the kitchen that was nowhere near Sam, and that was fine with him. The sooner they had Dean, the better off they’d all be.

Sam quickly scanned his own part of the kitchen. The wall was brick and one swipe of his fingers brought plaster to his feet, where there was a veritable pile of the stuff. From the remnants of pipes and counter, it looked like this area had once housed a water pump and basin. The pump looked to be made of iron, and he’d bet there was iron somewhere on the ice box too. The entire kitchen was filled with the stuff.

So why toss Dean through here? What did that get the spirit?

Sam froze. It got them in the kitchen, away from the front door. It got them away from-

He turned towards Aidan. One bag. Not two. “Aidan, where’s the other two bags?” he asked, fear nearly stealing his breath. Aidan stared like a deer in the headlights. “Aidan!”

“Um…”

Sam tore through the hole, forcing his way back out to the main foyer. Sure enough, both bags were gone. Shotgun shells, most of the salt, the iron bars, the banishing spell equipment-

All of it gone. Whatever Aidan had, whatever Dean had had, was all they had to protect themselves from a pissed off spirit that fried people to death. It wasn’t going to be enough to keep them all alive, not if they had to be sparse with their shells and bullets. His pulse pounded through his neck, churning his stomach until he thought he’d be sick.

He checked his piece at his back, which thankfully was still there after the flying episode. The shotgun he hadn’t let go of, and there was a knife in his boot. He checked the shotgun and found it fully loaded and ready to go.

That was all he had. God only knew if Dean had managed to hold on to his weapon. If Dean was even alive to use it-

_Stop it_. Dean was alive. There was no other alternative.

He moved back into the kitchen where the teens were gathered around Aidan. As one they looked at him, but none of them looked happy. “What happened?” he asked. “Did you find Dean?”

The teens all looked at each other warily, and Sam felt his heart rate pound even faster. “Listen,” Chris began, and no, Sam wasn’t going to listen, “Sam, we’ve searched the entire kitchen over and he’s not here.”

Sam’s eyes cast over the entire kitchen. “Then we search again.” Where the hell could Dean _be_?

“Sam-“

“I said we search again,” he shouted, fear fueling his rage. He didn’t wait a minute more, instead shoving his shotgun at Kristen, who apparently also had his flashlight, and heading for the walls. He ran his hands over the wall and started moving across the room. He pushed in various places, trying to see if any of the bricks would give. Dean had to be here. He _had_ to be.

This time, he wasn’t going to give up. Not now, not ever again.

Tapping made him freeze. He glanced behind him, half reaching for his piece, but it was Chris, heading the opposite way, tapping and pushing on bricks along the back wall. He gave Sam a nod when he caught Sam’s gaze, and Sam couldn’t even control the relief that spread across his face. Teen or not, at least Sam wasn’t alone looking for Dean this time.

He crept along the wall and kept pushing. A few bricks disintegrated at his touch but nothing gave him a hint of where his brother had gone. The silence in the room was growing on him, pressing in on him and setting his nerves on edge. He skirted around the stove, frowned again at the odd markings on the floor, and kept going.

Right before the ice box, Chris rejoined him. “Nothing,” he said, and he sounded like he was truly regretful. “Sam, I’m sorry.”

Something that felt like a pound of lead fell into his gut and Sam could feel bile rising in the back of his throat. Unknown ghost, one teen dead, four more under his care. No Dean.

“He can’t have just-“

And then he stopped because that’s what everyone had done. They hadn’t seen what had happened with Wanda, just had suddenly not had her with them and then she’d screamed. They hadn’t found her and then she’d reappeared, only to die by massive amounts of lightning strikes.

“Can we go?” Thomas said, coming over to join them. He shuddered. “Man, it’s getting cold in here.”

Had the temperature changed? “Is there a ghost coming?” Aidan squeaked, then cleared his throat. “I-I mean, you said ghosts were cold, is there a ghost coming?”

Sam began to respond, then froze when he felt the cool rush of air. Except it was to his right, near his face. With trepidation he slowly turned towards his side.

Nothing but the wall and the ice box. No ghost, nothing.

Wait. Wait, wait, _wait_.

“Chris, grab the other side,” Sam said, and he grabbed the edge of the ice box. Chris stumbled but hurried to get the other side. Thomas grabbed the front and helped them shove it to the side. It wasn’t iron, it only had rusting decorative doors, and was instead made of traditional wood. Still heavy as hell, but it wasn’t iron, which meant a ghost could move it as it pleased.

And behind the ice box was an old wooden door with another hole, roughly Dean sized.

Kristen hurried over with the flashlight and shone it inside. There, buried under a mound of plaster and brick, was Dean.

Relief hit him so hard he thought he’d pass out. “Dean,” Sam called, climbing through the hole. His brother made no sound, face covered in dust and a few streaks of blood, and Sam slid down beside him and reached for a pulse. Strong and steady.

At his touch, Dean groaned, his eyelids fluttering. “Take it easy,” Sam soothed. He started shoving plaster and bricks off of Dean, eyes searching everywhere for more blood, or worse, bone. But he found neither, incredibly, except for the blood on the side of Dean’s head. Impact, most likely.

“Holy crap, you found him,” Thomas said, stunned. “I can’t believe you friggin’ found him, dude.”

Slowly Dean opened his eyes. “Tell me what hurts,” Sam said, ignoring the teens for the moment.

“Is everythin’ an ‘ceptable answer?” Dean mumbled. “Because ow.”

“Dean,” Sam said, forcing his voice not to shake. Now that he’d found his brother, his adrenaline rush was over, leaving him trembling and unsteady.

“Shoulder,” Dean said, then grimaced. “And my head.” With each word he sounded clearer, more coherent. He paused, then glanced up at Sam. “You okay?”

It was such a Dean thing to ask, something that Sam had missed so much, that it made him choke back a hysterical laugh. Dean only looked more concerned and pushed himself to rise. “Just take it easy,” Sam all but pleaded.

“Seriously, I’m okay,” Dean said, like being knocked unconscious was no big deal. “Where’s the ducklings?”

“All accounted for.”

“Hey!” Thomas objected. “I’m not a duckling!”

“Shut up, Thomas,” Kristen told him.

Dean rolled his eyes, then winced again. “Shoulder’s wrenched, if I had to guess,” he said. “Could’ve been way worse.”

Way, way worse. Sam couldn’t help but reach out for his brother, pretending to brush plaster off of his jacket but just unable to not make sure Dean was there and real. Dean met his gaze, eyes knowing. Whatever. Sam didn’t care that he was being transparent.

“Um, what’s that?”

They both turned at Aidan’s hesitant voice, then followed the flashlight beam to the side. Somehow, Dean had landed at the top of a flight of stairs, leading down into pitch black that the flashlight couldn’t even penetrate.

“Basement,” Dean muttered. “Because of course it has to be the basement.”

“Might be where the guy takes them before he lights them up,” Sam said. It would be nice to get a leg up on the ghost instead of being dragged around – literally – wherever the spirit wanted them. Which, at this point, Sam still didn’t understand what it wanted.

Dean began to answer, then frowned. “Guy?”

Oh. “Yeah,” Sam said, making a face. “It’s not Daniel. We have visual confirmation of an old guy with spectacles.”

“And a serious bald patch,” Kristen chimed in. “Lots of hair on the sides that needed conditioner.”

Dean looked as enthused as Sam had felt, which was to say not at all. “Keeps getting better.” He took a deep breath and let it out with a faint wince. “All right, let’s see what’s down here. If he was trying to drag me off to where he takes everybody else, this might be our best bet.”

“Might have your other bags, too,” Chris said helpfully, and Sam shut his eyes tight. He’d forgotten about that.

For a moment, Dean could only blink. “Bags?” he finally said. “Where are the bags?”

Aidan raised his hand. “I have one,” he said, then, when no one said anything, he slowly lowered his hand back down.

Dean swung his gaze over to Sam and while he couldn’t read his brother’s face, his silence felt like an accusation. “We followed your path, followed you,” Sam said quietly. “By the time I realized we might be getting lured away, the bags were gone.”

Dean pursed his lips for a long moment. “Old, not who we thought, and smart,” he finally said. “Feeling _real_ good about this.”

Sam’s stomach churned again. He should’ve kept an eye on the bags, he knew better than that. He was just as out of touch with hunting as Dean had accused him of before. But all he’d had eyes for was his brother disappearing through the wall.

He heard a sigh, but found himself surprised when Dean’s hand caught his shoulder. “You’re not hurt?” Dean asked.

It was pure determination that allowed him to keep his composure. Even after everything, Dean could still look past everything and care. “Yeah,” Sam said roughly.

“Um, Sam, Dean.”

Sam glanced over at Chris, who was peering behind him anxiously. “It got really cold all of a sudden,” he said. “What do we do?”

As if on cue, the EMF in the bag Aidan had in his hand began to whine, making Aidan jump sideways into Chris. Their tumble to the side revealed the figure behind them, ghostly pale, spectacles shining. His right hand reached towards Chris and Aidan.

Kristen gasped and Thomas grabbed her, tugging her to the other side. Even as Sam reached for his piece, Dean was faster, and he brought his shotgun up and fired through the spirit. The man gave a howl but vanished in a wisp of smoke.

In the short few seconds that the spirit had been there, Sam had still registered the figure: round spectacles, bald top with a patch of wiry hair circling his head. Definitely not Daniel. And definitely interested in taking more people.

“That the guy?” Dean asked in the subsequent silence. Kristen gave a short nod, and Dean jerked his head towards the stairs. “Well, now we’re acquainted. Let’s get moving.”

“Wait, we’re not going down there, are we?” Thomas said, and the teen actually sounded scared. “Oh god, don’t you watch any horror flicks?”

“Yeah, and that’s why we’re telling you to stay _close_,” Dean snapped. “You want to stay with the nice spirit who’s taking people and frying them? No? Then everyone get in here, now.”

As the teens hurried to comply, Sam turned towards the stairs and took the flashlight and his shotgun from Kristen. “You lead, I follow?”

Dean gave him a long look, then shook his head at the proffered flashlight. “I’m good. Lead on, Macduff.” _I trust you._

Sam had to take a moment before he could trust his voice. “Everyone after me,” he said. “We stay together. Don’t wander off, don’t stay quiet if something feels wrong or cold. And Aidan?”

“Yeah?”

“Hand the bag over,” Dean and Sam said at the same time. Aidan all but threw the bag over at Dean as Sam aimed his flashlight down. The darkness below them swallowed everything up, and he couldn’t hear a single sound. Shotgun in one hand, flashlight crossed beneath his wrist, he began to descend down the creaky, dusty stairs.


	5. The Cold Basement

Most places made some sort of noise. Electricity charging, water running, walls and floors creaking. But this house barely made a sound except for what they added: Sam’s careful steps down the creaky stairs, the teens’ hushed whispers to one another, timid footsteps at uneven paces as they hurried down as a group.

Dean winced again but kept his own flashlight up. It wasn’t the big one but the tiny one he’d kept as a backup in his jacket. God only knew where the other one had gone. The ghost could’ve taken it.

_That_, Dean didn’t like the sound of. It made sense, since a ghost could steal people, it could steal other things, too, but he didn’t like the implication. That implied that the ghost wasn’t just stuck in a pattern of taking people. No, this was calculated. It wanted their things because it knew what they were here to do, and it didn’t like that.

Well, screw the ghost over times a million, because it hadn’t taken the best weapon Dean could’ve ever asked for. Sam. And damn if he wasn’t thanking any god that would listen for that because it could’ve taken Sam just as easily as the bags, and while Dean would’ve woken up and found his way back out eventually, it would’ve been to find Sam, taken, gone, maybe even already fried.

It made his stomach turn even more than the probable concussion had already caused. His shoulder ached, probably feeling about as great as Sam’s knee. His brother also seemed to be favoring his same shoulder that Dean had wrenched, and Dean could take two guesses as to how that had happened, with neither guess being of the friendly sort.

So far, besides Wanda, they’d gotten ridiculously lucky, and he felt like that was about to end.

Sam reached the bottom and immediately turned to see beyond and behind the stairs. Dean froze, perched in place, until Sam gave the go-ahead nod. “Move,” Dean told the teens, and they hustled down to the basement floor.

A gust of cold air flew behind Dean’s ear, and he swung around, shotgun and flashlight ready. The flashlight caught nothing but dust motes, disturbed at long last and floating harmlessly through the air.

“Getting really tired of this,” he muttered. With one last cursory look behind him he made his way down the stairs and to the basement. The teens were huddled behind Sam, who continued making his way around the basement. Dean finally peered around with his own flashlight.

For a basement in an abandoned, haunted house, it was decidedly not scary. The walls looked like they used to be white but were now gray and faded, paint peeling as if someone had clawed at it. The floor was bare and covered in dirt in large patches, and a few plants had poked up and through, offering a splotch of color in the black. An old wooden table rested against the farthest wall, and a few chairs were stacked beside it. Another two chairs were stacked next to an old HVAC system to the right.

Otherwise, there was nothing. The basement was empty and silent, just like the rest of the house.

He pushed past a few cobwebs that Sam hadn’t caught (there were a few bonuses to Sam being taller than him) and made his way over to Sam. “Anything?” he asked.

Sam kept his flashlight trained around him but shook his head. “No. Nothing. Honestly, if he brought people down here, I can’t see any evidence of them left behind. We’re the first ones who have disturbed the dirt.” He shone his flashlight down and Dean could see that the only footprints in the dust and dirt were theirs. A quick inspection of the floor proved their point even further.

“No bags either,” he said. Sam tensed beside him and Dean pursed his lips. “Which you couldn’t have done anything about. You were busy coming after me. I wouldn’t have thought of the bags, either.”

Sam didn’t say anything, but the tension faded, leaving him just looking tired. “You sure you’re okay?” Dean asked quietly. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Fine, didn’t catch the wall as bad as you,” Sam said absently, eyes still roaming the room. Dean glared at him and shoved him in the shoulder, making Sam yelp and the teens to gasp in fear.

“Explain ‘catch the wall’, Sam.”

“I caught the wall coming into the kitchen,” Sam said, scowling and rubbing at his shoulder. “It’s no big deal. Honestly it doesn’t hurt as bad as my knee, and we’ve got other stuff to worry about right now. Like how if he’s bringing them down here, maybe he’s down here, too.”

Both of them turned towards the floor, covered in dirt. Dean glanced in his bag briefly and saw with a twinge of resignation that it wasn’t the bag with the collapsible shovel. Which meant they’d have to work with what they had.

“I’m going to see if they have shovels,” Sam finally said and moved off towards the wall with HVAC and chairs. Dean turned towards the table and chairs, looking for anything to help them dig. The brick walls weren’t going to hold much in terms of bodies, thankfully, but with a ghost on the loose, a body search in the floor wasn’t his idea of a fun time.

A voice cleared behind him, and Dean barely managed to keep from pulling a shotgun on whoever it was. Chris, with his arms wrapped around himself, almost took a step back at the look in Dean’s eyes. “Sorry,” he said meekly. “It’s, uh, getting chilly, and we don’t know if that’s just basement-chilly or ghost-chilly.”

He pulled the bag around and dug out the EMF detector, then, after a minute, he handed it to Chris. “If that goes off, we’ve got a spirit nearby,” he said. “Don’t lose that.”

“I won’t,” Chris said firmly. “Can I help at all, otherwise? I helped Sam upstairs while we scoured the kitchen for you.”

At that, Dean frowned. “Scoured?”

“Yeah. The ice box was in front of the door you got thrown through. So we couldn’t see the hole right away. But Sam refused to give up. Said we were going to find you no matter what.”

It startled him how much he wasn’t surprised by Sam’s determination. His brother, stubborn to the last, refusing to stop looking. That was Sam, loyal to the last.

So why had Sam given up before, when Dean had disappeared? It just didn’t make sense.

“Dean?”

Dean shook himself. Ghost, teens, digging for a body. “Yeah. Try and find something to dig with.”

Chris frowned for a minute, then went pale. “Seriously?” he whispered.

“Seriously. Welcome to the glorious life of a hunter.”

“You guys need new hobbies,” Chris muttered, but he dutifully went to the stack and started digging.

Dean snorted. Tell him something he didn’t know. He moved the flashlight over the basement, eyes straying to the dirt beneath their feet. God only knew how much digging they’d have to do. The Ouija board actually would’ve been nice right around now, but it was gone, along with most of their rounds and their other banishment kits they’d started stocking over the years. Still, they had enough in each bag to always take care of a spirit. Salt, lighter fluid, matches.

They’d learned that lesson the hard way.

A gust of cold air brushed past his face and he turned fast, shotgun up. Nothing. Just the wall, filthy and peeling. The EMF hadn’t gone off, either.

But it felt wrong. Something was very wrong.

It just…didn’t make sense. Why try at random intervals to take them? Why not just keep on them? And what about Daniel?

If the ghost was really buried down here, then he should be at their throats, trying desperately to not be dug up and banished. Or attempt, at the very least, to take them while they were sitting ducks, wandering around in the dark.

Both led to the one thought that Dean didn’t want to have: that this guy wasn’t buried here. And that they needed to keep moving. This pocket of peace wasn’t going to last forever.

The other three teens stayed together, even Aidan and Thomas apparently getting along in the face of death and danger. Thomas and Aidan still had their flashlights, though Dean didn’t remember how many kids had had flashlights to start with. Little details he didn’t really need, but it annoyed him all the same, because apparently that concussion wasn’t as minor as he would’ve liked. Not if it was upsetting some of his short-term memories from the past few hours.

He glanced over at Sam to check in with his little brother and found him standing in front of the HVAC, flashlight in hand going up and down, looking bewildered. It was the same look he’d had when he’d found the ectoplasm on the ceiling.

With Chris still looking for digging tools, the teens busy, and Dean himself out of options, he headed for his brother.

It just…didn’t make sense. Something was very wrong, but for the life of him, Sam couldn’t figure out what it was. Maybe the book would have some more hints-

Which was gone, tucked into one of the other bags. Sam’s foul mood sunk even further.

“You find something?”

Sam glanced at his brother and sighed. “Maybe? If I had the book I could tell you, but it’s with everything else I lost.”

“I told you-“

“This book?”

Sam spun around to where Aidan stood, book in hand. “You dropped it after…after Wanda,” he said. “I grabbed it with the one bag.” He made a face and slumped a little. “I’m sorry I didn’t get the other bags.”

“That’s not on you,” Sam said immediately. “I’m grateful you kept hold of the bag and the book.” No, he’d been the one making rookie mistakes. Aidan had been a champ.

“Spirits aren’t usually smart enough to take stuff,” Dean said, speaking loud enough to address everyone in the room. “But this one is. He wants us disoriented and confused.”

“I’m there,” Thomas muttered. “Been there for a while.”

“All I’m saying is hang on to your flashlights and your wits.” Sam glanced at his brother and wasn’t surprised to see Dean’s eyes on him. “We’ve got what we need,” Dean continued. “We can get out of here. Let’s just stay together.”

_Keep focused, Sammy. We’ll get everyone out of here. Stay with me._

He couldn’t hunt if he kept castigating himself and he knew it. He took a deep breath and let it out as a deep sigh. “Aidan, the book,” he said, and Aidan handed it over. He flipped through to the pages he needed and started reading in earnest. Without even asking Dean came up beside him and put the flashlight to the pages.

Nothing stood out to him. Windows everywhere, even two decorative ones near the roof-line to make the house look taller, a front door that he knew too well, shutters everywhere, chimneys tall and imposing.

He glanced through the text. Sold after Winston died to an investor who desired the property but not the farmland, sold the farmland into various pieces, tried to re-open the house as a “valuable business to tourists and travelers alike”. Yeah, Sam wasn’t sure he would’ve gotten “bed and breakfast” out of that, but it fit.

“First disappearance happened in 1927,” Dean said, reading over his shoulder. “The elderly gentleman.”

“Yeah, two years after the property was bought and the last of the farmland was sold off.”

“I could’ve told you that.”

Sam glanced up at Kristen who had crossed her arms again. “My grandma bought the property right behind this one, the last one available,” she said. “She was a single woman, so it caused a hell of a stir. It’s still her favorite story.” She smiled for the first time since Sam had met her.

“And she never mentioned the house?” Sam asked.

Kristen’s smile disappeared. “She told me not to go in it,” she admitted. “Should’ve listened to her. I’ll tell her she was right if I survive getting out of here.”

That, Sam was going to do. “No one else is dying tonight,” he said firmly. “We’re all getting out.” He turned back to the book. The house had been officially abandoned in 1952, with too many disappearances haunting the good name of the business.

Well. That explained that, then.

“What?” Dean asked. Apparently he’d caught on to Sam’s “I found something” moment. “What’s up?”

Sam pointed straight ahead, but his eyes went above to the ceiling. Sure enough, there were discoloration and ridges that stood out of place. He had to be right. “Right here.”

Dean glanced over at the ancient HVAC system. “Okay, modern-ish amenities. And?”

“HVAC systems only started sometime in the 1950’s, though they were invented somewhere around the year 1900. They definitely wouldn’t have been a part of the house in the 1930’s or when the house was built.”

“Does he know everything?” Thomas asked, almost sounding offended.

Dean turned on him with a Cheshire smile. “Yes. And it’s key to you staying alive, so zip it.” He dropped the smile and turned back to Sam. “No HVAC originally, added late, probably in a last-minute bid to get customers, got it. Tell me how it’s important.”

It was almost humbling, how easily Dean trusted him, relied on him, believed in him. Even after all these years. “So how did they heat the house?” Sam asked.

It took Dean not even a second. “Fireplace,” he said. Then he frowned. “So where is it?”

“A bed and breakfast would’ve had to have some way to heat each room,” Sam said. “I’m guessing a wood stove with multiple fireplaces.” He turned his flashlight to the ceiling, ready to point out the aberration in the paint.

Black ooze shone in the flashlight’s beam. Sam froze. “Everybody upstairs, _now_,” Dean ordered.

“Wait, what _is_ that stuff?” Kristen asked. She gave a yelp as Dean started literally herding them back up the stairs.

“Nothing you need to mess with. Sam!”

The ectoplasm was in the same place as the furnace would’ve been, if the picture in the book was any indicator. That wasn’t a coincidence. With one final glance, Sam turned and headed for the stairs after the others.

Eyes full of rage were inches from his own, and bloody spectral hands reached for him. Sam shouted and tumbled backwards, bringing the shotgun up to fire. In a flash the man – spirit, no matter how real and solid he looked with his scraggly dark hair and beard – flew after him and shoved him into the wall. _Hard_.

Time sort of lost a little meaning after that. Sam thought he heard shouting, some high-pitched screams, a loud _bangboom_ that he understood or at least thought he did, and an angry roar that did nothing for his head. The silence that followed let him try to focus, but the world looked a little fuzzy, and his eyes didn’t quite feel right in his skull. Focusing hurt. Actually, everything in his head hurt, from his hair to his ears and his chin. Every nerve seemed to sing and the feeling was nauseating.

A hand grabbed hold of his arm and pulled, and Sam instinctively swung out with his gun. “Woah, woah!” he heard, and it sounded like…

“Dean?” he mumbled, his lips heavy and too big for his face. Something slid down the side of his head and face nauseatingly slow, but he couldn’t find his fingers to wipe it away.

The hands were much more tentative now as they caught his arm. “Yeah, it’s me. Easy. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. Can you stand?”

Slowly Sam blinked and brought more into focus. Dean, kneeling beside him, eyes narrowed in worry. Nodding sounded painful and dangerous, so Sam settled on trying to find his limbs and pulling himself together.

“Easy, easy,” Dean coaxed. Sam winced and reached for his head, only to have Dean catch his hand. “Yeah, let’s not do that. You’ve got a bit of a shiner going on already. That’ll be pretty tomorrow.”

“Assuming we live ‘till tomorrow.”

“Oh, sure, be optimistic why don’t you,” Dean teased, and he actually looked relieved. Guess Sam looked worse than he’d thought. He certainly felt worse.

Noises from ahead brought Sam back. The teens. “We need to go,” Sam mumbled.

“Yeah, and get away from the other psycho,” Dean said. When Sam frowned, his brother raised his eyebrow. “The one who just sent you flying into a wall? Poltergeist?”

“Other?” Sam asked.

Dean pursed his lips. “It wasn’t the same guy we saw upstairs,” he said. “Different guy.”

That’s right, the other spirit didn’t have a beard. It was more than his head could handle at the moment. “So, two spirits?” The frustrated face was all he needed to know that this was about to go sideways. Again. “Shit,” he summed up.

“About where I was at, yeah,” Dean agreed. “He didn’t have an axe, if that makes you feel any better.”

No, not particularly, but they’d have to take what they could get.

Dean’s hand on his elbow was a good stabilizer as they made their way back to the teens. “Is he gone?” Aidan asked fearfully. “That other guy?”

“He didn’t look anything like the spirit that took Wanda,” Thomas said. The first glimmers of terror were starting to make their way into the corners of his eyes. They only grew as he looked Sam up and down. “How bad are you hurt? Are you gonna be able to keep us alive?”

Well, glad to know where Sam’s health stood. “If you don’t do anything stupid, yeah,” Dean snapped, apparently feeling the same way and taking major offense to it. “Stay with us and keep moving.”

Despite his gruff tone, his grasp stayed gentle as he kept Sam bolstered and upright. Each step hurt but also helped orient him. “You need to lead,” Sam whispered when Dean kept by his side.

“I need to be here,” Dean growled. “Keep going and warn me if you’re gonna hurl.”

As if on cue, Sam’s stomach churned. “Don’t say ‘hurl’ then,” he mumbled. Even before he’d finished talking, though, Dean’s one hand went to his stomach and rested there. It helped quell the nausea. Just like it always did.

They made their way up the stairs that were barely wide enough for the both of them. Ahead of them was Chris, EMF reader in hand, flashlight in the other, and Sam could see the fear in his eyes. “Keep going,” he croaked. His face felt itchy as the blood began to dry on his cheek.

Somehow, the other teens had gotten ahead of them as well, and Sam watched them disappear back into the kitchen. Chris hesitated at the hole, but Dean waved him on. “I’ve got him, get with the others.”

Leaving them without a hunter to protect them, because Dean was too busy dragging his ass around. “Dean-“

“Don’t even start with me,” Dean said firmly. “C’mon, let’s go.”

They were two steps from the top when a loud bang made Sam nearly lose his balance on the stairs. Dean shoved him up to the top of the stairs and hurried up after him, but it was too late.

The ice box was back over the hole, effectively closing them in. Dean shoved at it as hard as he could, then kicked it for good measure, but it wouldn’t budge. “Chris!” Dean shouted, and Sam winced as the volume speared through his head. “Aidan! Kristen!”

Silence.


	6. The Bloody Fist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We get a little bloody and gruesome in this one. You've been warned.

Sam stared at the hole in the door, heart pounding in his chest. Dean kicked at the ice box again but still couldn’t get it to budge. “Come on!” he roared and slammed his good shoulder into it. “Is this thing made of iron or something?” He tried the door itself but it refused to budge.

Nothing moved.

The spirit had to be holding it in place. That meant something, and if Sam could just get his fuzzy brain to _work_-

Start simple. He raced through his murky thoughts as fast as he could. Banishing spells, holy oil – no, that was angels, and it had never really worked with Lucifer in the Cage, or had it ever really been holy oil-

“_Focus_,” he hissed at himself. He clutched at his head. They were running out of time, he could feel it.

“On what?” Dean yelled, then seemed to realize Sam was talking to himself. “Sam?”

Banishing spell which he couldn’t remember right now, holy water a time or two, not holy oil, iron, and-

Salt. _Salt_.

He dug into Dean’s bag, still slung over his brother’s shoulder, racing to find what they had in every bag. His fingers hit pay dirt and he yanked out his prize. He opened the spout and threw a liberal amount of the white crystals all over the ice box that they could see through the hole.

A howl went up, filled with fury, and Sam flinched against the noise. Dean didn’t waste time, just kicked the ice box one more time, and this time sent it flying into the kitchen. He hurried through, Sam following closely behind.

The four teens stood there, looking like they’d backed away from the ice box in a hurry. “You hurt?” Dean demanded. “Anyone?”

“Not us,” Chris said, relieved. “We kept calling for you and you wouldn’t answer.”

“Oh, there was definitely yelling on our end,” Dean said. “Seriously, everyone’s okay?”

Hasty nods spread through the group. Sam looked them all over but they were all seriously okay. Whatever the ghost had planned, it hadn’t succeeded. Sam breathed out a quick sigh of relief.

The EMF reader suddenly went off, wail high and piercing.

“Chris watch out!”

Sam whipped around and saw the first spirit right behind Chris who stood frozen, EMF reader going off in his hand. “Move!” Dean shouted but Chris had already thrown himself forward with the agility a gymnast and successfully dodged the spirit’s reach. The spirit glared through dirty spectacles and reached forward again even as Dean raised his shotgun and fired. The spirit vanished and the salt spray hit the wall.

Sam froze. Had the spirit…dodged the salt spray? He glanced at Dean and found his brother similarly confused. “Did I hit him?” Dean asked.

Slowly Chris got to his feet. “Well, whatever you did, he’s gone,” he said with relief. “Thanks, dude.”

“Yeah, well, he could come back at any second, so keep your eyes-“

Chris had barely gotten to his feet when a hand suddenly shot through his chest. Sam could only stare in horror as the crunch of bones echoed through the room, followed by the gurgle in the teen’s throat as he choked on his own blood. His shirt went crimson in an instant, and blood ran down his chin and neck. Sam watched as the light in Chris’s eyes all but immediately went out. He hung, suspended only by the arm still in his chest. The EMF reader filled the air with its shrieking.

The hand pulled back through the chest cavity viciously, the squelching and cracking sounds enough to make Sam want to cover his ears. Chris dropped, revealing the poltergeist. His eyes were almost black and when he looked up, he met Sam’s wide eyes with a crazed grin. He looked _pleased_. Sam couldn’t find any air to breathe with, pulse pounding in his ears. The entire room seemed equally as frozen as he was.

Then the poltergeist took two steps towards him.

The sound of a gun cocking happened almost at the same time Dean loosed an iron bullet. The poltergeist disappeared with a furious roar. As soon as he disappeared, Sam darted forward, as if unable to help himself. “Sam-!”

He slid to his knees next to the teen and tried to avoid the blood that was spilling onto the wood. There was no pulse, judging by the demolished heart that Sam could see through the hole in Chris’s back. Chris’s head had fallen with his face turned to the side, and his empty gaze stared at nothing. With trembling fingers Sam closed his eyes. It was the least he could do, since he hadn’t been able to keep the teen safe.

They’d been _right there_. And they hadn’t been able to keep him safe.

It just highlighted how outgunned they were on this.

Familiar boots stepped into his vision as he pried the EMF reader, now silent, from Chris’s hand. “C’mon, you’ll get blood soaked in, kneeling like that,” Dean murmured. Sam found his arm gently tugged as his brother got him to standing. His eyes didn’t leave Chris’s corpse, and he shut his eyes against the grisly sight.

Two down. His stomach turned with the same anxiety that had nearly shut him down after Dean and Cas had disappeared in front of him. _I can’t do this. What am I supposed to do?_

This time, however, a hand tightened around his arm, and the warmth of his brother pressed in against his side. “You okay?” Dean asked, his voice still whisper-soft.

He wasn’t alone. Dean was here, still by his side, and with that knowledge, Sam found he could take a breath. “Not really,” he admitted. “I’d be a lot better if we could get out. I don’t like the whole losing civilians thing.”

“Yeah, I could do without the gruesome countdown again.” The less said about that horrific night as they’d played keep-away from a psychopath and a spirit, losing people one by one, the better. Sam still had nightmares about that one and he was sure Dean did too. Some cases just stuck with you. He had a sinking suspicion this case was going to be one of them.

Sam turned back to the other teens. The three remaining couldn’t seem to quit staring at Chris, and even Thomas was silent, eyes filled with grief. As mouthy and brash as he was, he’d lost friends tonight, and it was clearly taking its toll. He was still just a kid.

“We need to go,” Kristen said tonelessly. Her eyes stayed on Chris, but she wasn’t cowering, had instead seemed to close herself off. “Can we just get moving?”

“Where?” Aidan asked, tears in his eyes. “They won’t let us out, a-and we didn’t find anything in the basement so, so now what? We might as well wait until it’s our turn to die.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Dean snapped, making all the teens jump. “The basement was a bust so we keep looking.”

“For _what_?” Kristen asked incredulously. “What can honestly help us get out of here?”

Dean looked like he was winding up again so Sam intervened, forcing his gaze to focus on the blonde teen. “Wherever the people disappear to,” Sam said, aiming for gentle, calm. “All of them go somewhere, and if I had to guess, wherever it is matters to the spirit.”

“Maybe something they’re tied to,” Dean continued. He seemed to have found his grounding again. “Vase, pocket watch, a friggin’ booger. Whatever. Point is, if we can find it, we can torch it and he’ll let us go.”

Thomas finally found his voice. “Which one?” he asked. “Because there’s two ghosts now.”

Sam refused to look at Chris and instead glanced back at the hole in the kitchen door. The door was visible now, the broken pieces of the ice box scattered all over the floor. What had been the purpose of them going to the basement?

Then he glanced at the base of the door and stared.

“What?” Dean asked immediately.

Sam said nothing, just turned Dean’s flashlight towards the door. There, at the base, was a solid iron pole. It looked as if it had been jammed into place, but could easily be removed by any person. A spirit, on the other hand…

Dean muttered a curse that teenage ears probably shouldn’t hear. “What?” Aidan asked nervously. “What’s wrong?”

“Iron,” Dean said quietly. “Spirits and poltergeists can’t pass through iron, and they don’t like it when they get hit with it.”

“So?”

Sam met his brother’s gaze. Dean looked just as frustrated and even as guilty as he felt. They’d been played from the beginning and now there was nothing they could do. “That means they couldn’t get into the basement,” he told Kristen. “Or, in this case, _out_ of the basement.”

Because the poltergeist hadn’t shown up until the basement. And now he was up on the upper floor, killing people in bloody fashion. Sam's eyes couldn’t help but find the blood stain that slowly crept across the dusty floor.

“We let him out?” Thomas whispered. “That other guy with the beard, the one that…he was trapped down there?”

Dean didn't say anything, and Sam could find his voice. _Had_ been trapped down there.

Not anymore.

_“Mine.”_

Sam stiffened, stunned at the deep and angry voice, and immediately turned around. Flashlight beams went everywhere as they sought out the owner of the voice, but all they kept finding was plaster, the iron stove, dusty counters, Chris’s body.

Thomas shoved something at Sam and he realized that the teen had taken his shotgun, probably at Dean’s behest. “Show yourself, you freak!” Dean shouted, shotgun raised high. Sam raised his own shotgun, eyes trying to see anything in the darkness.

A flicker of light. The EMF reader wailed. Sam turned at the same time Dean did and fired right behind his brother's shot. No howls from the spirit, just a shriek that came from Aidan.

“Get over here!” Dean bellowed at the teens, making Sam’s head ache all the more, but the teens raced over and huddled between the two of them. His shotgun stayed up, ready for the next attack, because the EMF reader hadn’t stopped wailing.

Kristen screamed and Sam caught glimpse of the bearded spirit, eyes dark and lips curled up into a snarl, before he turned and fired one off. The howl that sprang up was almost as loud as the shotgun blast, and his ears rang.

Above the high-pitched sound in his ears, above the shrieking of the EMF reader, he could still hear a ghastly voice, dark and furious.

_“Mine. MINE.”_

The EMF reader suddenly went silent. Sam only realized he was panting whenever he could actually hear himself. He glanced at Dean and found his brother still warily watching the dark kitchen.

“Pardon my French,” Thomas said, his whisper loud in the ensuing quiet, “but can we please get the _fuck_ out of here?”

“Done,” Dean said, and he led the way out of the kitchen. Sam let the teens get out first, then turned one last time towards the floor. Even in the darkened room, he could still make out Chris’s profile, silent and still, just like the rest of the house.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, throat tight. Another person he had to leave behind. Someone else he’d lost.

“Sammy!”

Eyes burning, Sam blinked and blinked again, then turned and followed his brother’s voice, leaving Chris behind in the dark.

The entry hallway was just as dusty as he remembered. Had it only been a few hours since they’d gotten into the house?

Two people down. Three teens left. Two spirits, one a poltergeist, the other silent but determined.

“And a partridge in a pear tree,” Dean muttered. When did any of their plans ever go right?

He turned to holler for Sam again but saw his little brother climbing out of the kitchen. His eyes looked red, and Dean inwardly cursed, but he got it. He’d liked Chris, too. Not that he wanted any of the kids dead, but Chris just hurt. He’d deserved better.

Three more chances to get it right. They could do this.

Sam was rubbing at his head now, making Dean frown. “What’s wrong? You okay?”

The snarled, “No,” startled Dean. Sam pursed his lips but kept going. “I can’t freaking _remember_, Dean. I’m supposed to, it was important, and I just keep losing the thought. That’s all I do is just, just _lose_ things.”

It didn’t take much to see what was weighing on Sam’s mind. They’d lost Chris, and Wanda, too. And then there was the cluster of Do Not Touch that was Purgatory and Amelia and all of that.

He forced himself to look at the more alarming point, which was that Sam’s memory was having issues. As much as Dean’s head still hurt like hell, it was a nuisance that waxed and waned with each adrenaline surge, but he could manage it.

With the help of the moon that continued to rise through the front windows, Dean caught hold of Sam and tugged him forward to look at his head. The side of his head was matted down with thick, dark blood, and Dean winced as he looked at it. No wonder the kid couldn’t remember things. He swung his flashlight across Sam’s eyes just to confirm, and even as Sam shied back with an impressive curse, one of his pupils didn’t respond. Concussion, and a damn bad one, one that might even have warranted a drive straight to the nearest ER.

He handed his shotgun over to Thomas and pried the EMF reader out of Sam’s hand. “Hold these,” he ordered as he dug into his bag for the first aid kit. Please, please-

There, got it. He dragged it out and pulled a bandage roll and an alcohol swab and started working fast. His ear kept listening for the wail of the EMF reader, and his eyes kept straying to the corners.

“Do we seriously have time for that right now?” Thomas snapped. “How about when we all get out of here?”

“Look, the only way we’re going to get out of here is to figure out where they took everybody,” Dean told him, sparing a glare at the teen. He swiped the alcohol swab over Sam’s head, wincing when Sam hissed and tried to pull away. It wasn’t thankfully too big a gash, but head wounds bled like a bitch, and this one was no exception. He managed to get most of the blood out and then wadded up some of the bandage. “Hold this.”

“What about the second floor?” Kristen asked, glancing at the stairs. “Only place we really haven’t looked.”

“There’s a hallway here on the first floor,” Aidan said, then swallowed hard.

“No, Kristen’s right, second floor’s probably our best bet. So far, everything they’ve done has kept us down here. So let’s head upstairs, see what we can find. And for the love of god, everyone-“

“Stay together, yeah, you keep saying that,” Thomas said, crossing his arms. He glared, lips curling up into a snarl. “Not that it seems to do any of us a lick of good, right? I mean, Wanda’s gone-“

Aidan cut in with a quiet, “Wanda took off, though,” which Thomas steamrolled right over.

“-and now Chris is dead and he was _right next to us_. So what good does it do to stay together?”

Dean turned from Sam and rose to his full height, allowing him to tower over Thomas. “I get that you’re freaked,” he said, voice low. “And I get that shit is going sideways. This wasn’t how I’d planned tonight going either. There’s a Star Wars marathon I’m missing, there’s two kids dead, and my brother needs a hospital half an hour ago.

“But if you start panicking now, you will definitely get yourself killed. And maybe the rest of us, too. If you can’t stay with us and want to go it alone, be my guest. I’ve got enough on my plate right now, trying to deal with a poltergeist and a ghost without dealing with another asshole tonight-“

“Dean.”

It was enough to pull him back from the brink. Thomas was still glaring at him, but his face had gone pale. Dean snapped his mouth shut and turned back towards his little brother. Sam stood, bandage on his head, face creased with pain. But his eyes still held strength and that sympathetic, _I know, _that Dean had missed so damn much in Purgatory.

Sam stepped past him, squeezing his elbow on the way to help Dean find stability. “Thanks for holding on to these for me,” he said to Thomas, taking his shotgun back. “You want the EMF reader?”

Thomas didn’t stop glaring, but he did bring it back to a glower. “Yeah, whatever,” he grumped. “Wouldn’t want you to _lose_ anything or leave anyone behind.”

Sam stiffened and Dean tightened his hands into fists. “Okay, enough,” Kristen said angrily before Dean could say anything. “Knock it off, Thomas. We need to get upstairs. Whip it out to compare later, but I’m pretty sure you’ll lose.”

She turned and stomped over to the stairs and Sam hurried to get ahead of her. His face looked full of pain again, but it wasn’t all to do with the concussion.

Part of him kept holding on to his own pain, his anger, remembering twelve months of terror and constant running for his life. It kept leaking out, even when he didn’t mean for it to, but in the wake of Sam’s misery, there was no contest. He was back, and he had the one thing he’d wanted the most when he’d been in Purgatory.

And if he couldn’t move past it like he kept insisting he could, he’d lose what he'd wanted so much. Losing Sam was never an option.

They were halfway up the stairs when the EMF reader began a low-pitched whine. Even as Dean raced to close the distance between him and the teens, the whine got louder. “Hurry!” Sam called, nearly at the top of the stairs.

In one moment every single flashlight went out. Even before Dean could find his breath, a scream went up and echoed throughout the hallway.


	7. The Separating

For one heart-stopping moment, Dean couldn’t tell where the scream had come from, or who it had come from, and he tried desperately to see Sam in the little light that came from the moon below him. He couldn’t hear anything, no panted breaths, no creaking stairs, nothing but the scream.

The scream suddenly cut off. Dean thought he might actually be sick, his heart pounding out of control.

The flashlights suddenly came back on and Dean immediately saw three teens gathered on the stairs in various frozen states-

And Sam, at the top of the stairs, alive. Relief made his legs shake and nearly sent him to his knees, and he watched Sam shut his eyes and put his hand on the wall to steady himself, relief visible on his face too.

Kristen reached out and smacked Aidan in the arm. “Ow!” Aidan whined, but Dean watched as the teen trembled.

“You asshole, you scared all of us shitless,” Kristen snapped. “Don’t _do_ that.”

“Something touched me!” Aidan said, eyes wide. “I swear something touched me in the dark!”

“It was probably me,” Thomas told him. “And now I’ve got no eardrums, thanks to you.”

Sam managed to find his voice. “Everyone upstairs, please. And if we could save the screaming for later, that would be great, thanks.” He still looked like he was trying to breathe normally and Dean had half a minute to consider if his brother was going to pass out.

Screw this. He pushed his way past the grumbling teens and put a hand against Sam’s chest. His brother’s heart felt like a bird fluttering in a cage, frightened and desperate. “You okay?” Sam asked him.

Dean snorted and couldn’t help the adrenaline-fueled grin. “Ask me in a few minutes.”

“Yeah, me too.”

It occurred to Dean then that the EMF reader had gone silent. Whatever their ghost had been planning, it hadn’t done anything. And since it hadn’t been bloody or vengeful, Dean could assume that it had been because of the spectacled spirit. The one who just wanted to take people to fry them.

None of this made a damn lick of sense.

As they reached the second floor, Dean immediately turned down one side of the hallway, Sam moving to the next. Five doors met Dean’s gaze, with three of them open, the first two shut. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound.

“Five doors,” he called behind him. Lots of places to start searching.

“Two,” Sam called over his own shoulder, and Dean dared to glance back as the teens reached them. Two doors, one open, one shut, but it was a short little hallway. They had to be bigger rooms, given the shape of the house.

Sam glanced at him, a question in his eyes obvious. “No splitting up,” Dean warned. “I mean it.”

“No arguments from me,” Sam muttered. He then muttered something else beneath his breath, something about keeping Dean in sight being better for his anxiety or something, but he couldn’t really hear it. Which, yeah, wasn’t like not seeing Sam hadn’t left him anxious too, but the wording from Sam was odd.

Dean pursed his lips. Later, when they could figure out what was going on. Which, speaking of, time to get in touch with his favorite information source. Screw the internet: it had nothing on Sam Winchester. “You see either of these assholes in that book?” he asked.

Sam shook his head. “Not that I can remember.” He winced and reached for the wound, and Dean waved him off. “Dean, I still can’t remember-“

“Walk it back,” Dean said softly. “Treat this like any other case.”

“Dean-“

“Like any other case,” he said firmly. “We were looking at the HVAC, you were pointing something out, and then the ectoplasm. C’mon Sammy, you can do this.”

Sam shut his eyes tight and Dean waited. After a moment, Sam slowly shook his head, his face filled with remorse. “I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. “It just keeps slipping away.” He glanced back at the hallway behind him and stumbled, would’ve potentially gone down the stairs if Dean hadn’t caught him. When Dean moved around to better hold him, he realized Sam’s eyes weren’t focusing. He’d gotten dizzy, it looked like.

This was nine types of fucked up and screwed over. Sam needed a hospital, now. Needed a hospital yesterday. Worry twisted his gut and he tightened his fingers in Sam’s shoulders.

“M’okay,” Sam mumbled. “We gotta keep moving.” He shook his head and went a little green, but he straightened and seemed to find his footing. “I’m okay,” he said in a stronger voice.

It probably said something about them that in a moment like this, Dean felt pride, but damn if he wasn’t proud of his kid. Concussion from hell and still walking and talking, still fighting.

Once he was sure Sam wasn’t going to fall over, he turned to his bag. If they were still playing ghost hunt, and getting closer to the center of that malicious Tootsie Pop, then the ghosts were going to get nastier. And the last thing Dean needed was them caught unawares.

“What do we have?” Sam asked, glancing over at the bag.

“Iron bar, iron rounds, first aid kit, salt, matches, more salt, lighter fluid.” Not their most well stocked bag, but still worlds better than they’d had in previous hotels. He’d take what he could get.

“Can I have something?” Aidan asked meekly. Sam didn’t even reach into the bag, simply dug the salt container out of his jacket pocket and handed it over. Aidan clutched at it with both hands.

Sam held up a salt cannister. “Thomas?”

The teen rolled his eyes. “Uh, gun?”

“Uh, no?” Dean raised an eyebrow at the teen. “I’m not handing you a loaded weapon. You can have the iron bar if you want it.” And even that wasn’t something he was sure he wanted to give the explosive kid but armed was better than not.

Thomas made a face. Fine. He shoved the bar back in the bag and raised an eyebrow at Kristen, but she stuck both hands in her hoodie pocket. She met his gaze in an obvious challenge. “I can’t manage a gun and I wouldn't be able to keep swinging a heavy iron bar,” she said. “So what’s the point?”

Before anyone could say anything, Aidan moved towards her and tugged one of her hands out of her pocket. Carefully he poured a large handful of salt into her upturned palm. “Better than nothing,” he said. Kristen stared at her hand, then him, and shockingly, she softened and even gave him a small smile.

Sam’s own lips turned up, just a little, but seeing it made Dean’s shoulders both come down a few inches. If Sam could smile, they weren’t completely screwed.

After glancing at Dean and getting a nod, Sam cleared his throat. “Okay, if we’re ready, then let’s take this one room at a time. We’re looking for anything that says a person was there: personal effects, scratches-“

“Blood?” Thomas asked, crossing his arms. “Maybe a body?”

Sam met the teen’s gaze evenly. “Maybe, yeah. So be prepared for it. There’s only two doors down this way and more the other way, so let’s close these two out first-“

“Yeah, no.”

Dean swung on the teen even as Kristen hissed, “_Thomas_,” because that was enough of that. “Pretty sure he didn’t stammer,” Dean told him.

Suddenly Thomas was up in his face, eyes like flint. “I’m not following the guy who’s got screws loose,” Thomas yelled. “Like, you’re kidding me, right? He keeps stumbling around and he can’t keep himself upright.”

“Like you’ve never had a concussion before,” Aidan muttered, surprising Dean.

Thomas ignored him, eyes fixed on Sam. “And then there’s this whole thing that you two keep glossing over like it’s no big deal, but I feel like we deserve an explanation.”

On a list of things Dean didn’t want to deal with right now on top of god knew when the next ghost would show up, angry teenager was in the top three. Especially one who couldn’t seem to keep his attitude to himself. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?” Dean asked, eyes hard.

Thomas didn’t even flinch. “This thing where Sam apparently has no problem leaving people behind and loses them all the time.”

God_dammit_. Dean glanced at Sam and found him frozen, face blank. Before he could say anything, though, Thomas kept going. “I mean, even without a head injury, which yeah, sucks, I get it, but apparently even without getting his head banged in, he leaves people behind to, what, save his own skin?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dean seethed because the nerve of this kid, to suggest that Sam would leave _anyone_ behind-

Yet he kept saying the same damn thing. Had told Sam over and over to his face, ignored every apology Sam had given him.

“You’re the one that called him out on it!” Thomas cried. “I mean, come _on_!”

“Thomas, enough!” Kristen yelled. She stepped between Sam and Thomas, back to Sam to face off against the teen, clearly showing where her loyalties were. Thomas’s nostrils flared. “We’ve got better things to do, like stay alive! What do you suggest we do then?”

“Beat down the door,” Thomas said immediately. “Or a window. I almost broke one open before. I’ll get us out of here.”

“What you’ll do is piss them off even more before we’ve figured out how to get us safely out of here,” Dean snapped. “There’s a reason I’m not beating down the windows or doors and it’s because they’ll come straight for us. That’s a last ditch effort.”

Thomas gestured behind Kristen at Sam. “You’re glossing over it again! I mean, come on guys, he’s not even defending himself!” Sam’s face was still forcibly blank, but his eyes were red and full of guilt and shame, and they were deliberately fixed on the ground.

Something hot curled in Dean’s gut, angry and fierce and ready to dole out some swift big brother justice to whomever had made Sam look like that. But he was part of it, too. He’d helped put that look on Sam’s face.

“He’s kept us alive!” Aidan protested. “They both have, god Thomas! How, how can you argue with that?”

“Because Chris and Wanda are dead! That’s how I argue with that! You want to follow them, fine, but don’t expect to walk out of here alive with these two. Dean, maybe, but he doesn’t even trust Sam. I mean,” and he turned to Dean as if he already knew the answer, “_do_ you trust him?”

Dean glanced over at Sam just in time to watch Sam hide a flinch, the first sign that he’d been affected by what Thomas had said. Well, try to hide, but Dean knew his little brother inside and out, and he knew what he’d seen. A year away in Hell’s backyard hadn’t changed that.

It really hadn’t changed anything. Because he knew Sam, and he _knew Sam. _And above all else, at the end of the day, no matter _what, _he would always trust Sam first.

“With my life,” he said.

Sam’s head shot up. And suddenly, it was so important to say it, and the chance to make amends was right in front of him. “There’s no one else I’d trust, no one else I’d want to hunt with,” he said firmly. “He’s the best damn hunter I know and the only one I can ever rely on. He’s never abandoned anyone. _Anyone,_” he emphasized when Sam opened his mouth as if to disagree. “There’s no one better than my brother. If you trust me, you trust him.”

There was no mistaking the glistening in Sam’s eyes or the way his little brother suddenly straightened, like Dean had given him strength. Message received. Dean’s lips twitched up, and Sam’s definitely moved up into a smile.

Thomas snorted, but he’d lost his anger in the wake of Dean’s admission. “You guys are like broken records. S’what he said about you.”

Dean was suddenly the one choking back emotions, because that-

That was more than he’d expected. After Benny and Martin and the whole fake text thing, sending Sam away to protect him as much as Benny, he realized that they’d both let each other down, _again_. But just like every other time, when they pulled themselves to standing again, they always seemed to find themselves at each other’s backs, facing the world together.

God but it felt good. Sammy’s smile went up a little more, and it was impossible not to match it. “So we do what he said,” Dean told them. “We take on the two back rooms here and between all of us, we can get out of here-“

The door to the room beside them flew open, and before they could do more than register it, an old wooden desk came flying out, straight into Sam. Sam cried out and flew backwards, straight down the stairs.

“Sammy!” Dean shouted, even as his hand caught Sam’s wrist. He managed to yank Sam to the side and the desk continued down the stairs, hitting the bottom and splintering into pieces.

Sam panted, wincing in pain and making an aborted reach for his head. Bet that hadn’t helped his headache at all. “Shit, sorry,” Dean muttered. He hauled Sam back up to the floor and reached for his side, only for Sam to instinctively shy away. “Lemme see, Sam, lemme see-“

“S’not bad,” Sam gasped, and that alone told Dean how bad it was. “More my wrist, you beast.”

“Yeah, sorry about saving your life,” Dean deadpanned, and Sam snorted a laugh despite his obvious pain. He’d missed this idiot, _god_ but he’d missed him. Still, he gently rolled the wrist around, making sure he hadn’t dislocated anything, before carefully feeling Sam’s side. Sam bit his lip hard when he ran his fingers over one of the ribs, and Dean cringed. Cracked at the least. On top of the concussion and god knew what else from tonight. _Dammit_.

Books started flying out of the room next, and Dean didn’t want to stick around to see what happened after that. “We need to get out of here!” Thomas shouted. “C’mon let’s _go_!”

Dean turned automatically at the kid’s freaked out voice, then froze as a hand appeared out of the dark hallway. His shout came too late. “Thomas, look out!”

Thomas turned just in time to see the spirit, little tufts of hair sticking up from the otherwise bald head, spectacles shining in the little light they had, and then just like that-

They were gone. Thomas's flashlight hit the ground and rolled, beam spinning in a slow circle.

“No!” Sam shouted, stretching out to grab Thomas a second too late. “Dammit, _no_-“

Shit shit _shit. _They had to find Thomas, fast. Before Dean could voice it, however, a scream went up, Thomas’s voice screaming in pain and panic and terror. It was loud and desperate and then-

It stopped in an instant, just like Wanda’s. Dean felt his heart pound in his chest and he swallowed back the bile in his throat. God.

Aidan began to tug at his hair, clearly panicking. “Oh god, oh god, oh _god_,” he began to wail. “We, we need to get out-“

“Let’s go!” Kristen shouted, and she took off down the hall. Down the longer end of the hall.

Civilians running loose hadn’t ended well at the last hotel, either, and now they were down to two. “Get back here!” Dean roared, but it was too late. Thomas was gone, Kristen was running blindly down the hall, and only Aidan froze at Dean’s shout.

“Dean,” Sam murmured, and Dean finally growled.

“I hate hotels. I _hate_ hotels-“

From behind them, an enraged roar told Dean exactly who had shown up to the party two seconds too late. The sound sent a frisson of fear through him and his heart started beating even faster. _Have to move have to move have to move. _“Go!” Dean finally ordered, and Aidan took off. Sam stumbled but held his balance, and together they chased after the teens. Past two closed doors that Dean glanced at as they ran, over a wooden board that had come up from the floor, and there, second door on the right, Aidan’s shoes disappearing inside.

Something cold brushed against the back of his neck and Dean shoved Sam ahead of him, knowing without even looking what was behind them. Even still, the volume of the, _“Mine!” _made his heart skip a beat because that was too close, way too close. He put on another burst of speed.

They weren’t going to make it. With him this close, he’d follow them into the room.

He pulled his gun out and fired two shots blindly behind him. At the second shot, he heard the poltergeist growl in rage, but the cold receded. He’d take it. “Go!” he yelled at Sam, who’d stalled at the door, waiting for him.

They hurried into the room that Kristen and Aidan were in and Sam slammed the door shut behind them. For a minute, the only sounds were their collective gasps and harsh pants. Dean grabbed the small iron bar from the bag and slung it across the bottom of the door. The howl of fury got louder and louder-

And then stopped. Silence filled the air, just enough for Dean to come back to himself.

Then the teens began to fall apart.

“Where’s Thomas? What happened to Thomas?”

“Oh god, we’re gonna die, just like Wanda, just like Chris, is Thomas dead?”

“What the fuck happened to Thomas? Where is he?!”

“Shut up!” Sam shouted, and the teens fell silent. Sam took a deep breath, winced, but surprisingly, his hand went to Dean’s shoulder. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

In the quiet of the room now, Dean actually realized he’d been holding his breath, and he let it out in an anxious woosh. He didn’t do sudden noises all that well still, nothing super loud, and Sam had known it, seen it. But the teens were quiet now, the poltergeist didn’t seem to be following them, and Dean found he could think again. “Yeah,” he said, and meant it. “Thanks, Sammy.”

Sam nodded once and took his hand back. Waiting, following Dean’s lead, his little brother and his backup. It wasn’t something that he probably deserved, but even battered to hell and back, his little brother was still there and watching him with that same trust he’d had when he was five and Dean held his hand to his first school.

Deep breath in. “All right,” said Dean as Sam tugged the bag off his shoulder. He pulled a salt cannister out and then shoved the bag back at Dean. Dean checked his gun and started loading in more rounds. “Anything in here? Time to get the fuck out of here.”

“We need Thomas,” Kristen said sourly. “Weren’t you ranting earlier about not leaving people behind?”

Ironic, Dean thought wryly, given his next choice of words. “We have no idea where the hell the ghost took Wanda before she showed up and fried, and we got no clue where Thomas is. My shotgun is almost useless because I don’t have time to make more shotgun shells, and there’s only about ten rounds of iron left in my handgun. That means all we got is salt, the iron bar, at the door the iron rounds that Sam and I need to share between us, and two salt cannisters.” One of which Sam was quickly emptying at the door over the iron bar, just for good measure. “Aidan, you still have yours?”

Aidan dug the salt out of his oversized pocket. “Still here,” he said, trembling. “Not letting it go.”

“Okay. Then we get you two and Sam out of here and I’ll keep looking for Thomas.” He glanced at the small window that held a straight drop down to the ground below. Not great but it would have to do. If they could get it open, and right now, Dean’s priorities had shifted. Sam and the kids were getting out.

“I thought that would just piss off the spirit,” Aidan said, biting his lip.

“It will,” Dean agreed. “But at this point, I’ll take the wrath if it means I can get you all out of here.”

Kristen began to speak, then stopped. “Wait. You’re not leaving?”

“We’re all leaving,” Sam said, standing. He was slow to get straight but his eyes were clear when he pinned Dean with a fierce look. “We’re not splitting up.”

“You need a hospital,” Dean said. “I’m not leaving Thomas to a Ben Franklin death. I’ll distract the spirits, should be enough for you guys to bash open a window and climb out. That’s you-“

“No.”

Dean ignored Sam and kept going. “That’s you three out and safe-“

“I said _no_.”

He whirled on Sam but his brother was already there, eyes on fire. “Sam, I’m not-“

“I am not leaving you,” Sam hissed. “We’ll try to get them out but I’m staying. And so help me god if you try to make me leave, I will make you regret it.”

Dean clenched his fists, throat tightening shut because of course he wouldn’t go. Bloody and exhausted and nearly dead on his feet and Sam wouldn’t leave him.

Kristen stepped between them, and for some reason, her eyes were on her watch. “Let’s just see if we can even get out of here,” she said. “Is there anything in this room or the next one we can use to break down the windows?”

“There’s the iron bar,” Aidan began, but when all three of them turned on him with glares, he backed off, sliding his glasses back up onto his face. “Right. Not the iron bar.”

Dean began to answer, then stopped, Kristen’s words coming back to him. “Wait a minute. Next room?”

In response, Kristen pointed behind him. He turned and found a door, partially open, leading into the room he’d passed before, the one with the closed door. And there, on the left, letting in a serious amount of moonlight, was the huge window that had been over the front door. Which meant an easy way out onto the porch roof and then down to the ground.

He hurried into the room, Sam right on his tail, and glanced at the closed door. Iron key still in the lock. Good.

The room itself didn’t have much – the old frame of a bed, a rocking chair that looked like it was barely staying together, and a clothes tree near the door. It looked like solid metal, and that was all Dean needed.

He glanced at Sam but his brother already had his gun out and trained on the door. “Hurry,” Sam said, and Dean raced to the clothes tree. It weighed more than he’d anticipated, but all the better to get the window open. He grabbed it like a ram and aimed at the window. One breath, two, then he took off at a run. Kristen dragged Aidan out of the way as Dean barreled past them to the window.

The end of the tree hit the window with a crack, and Dean stumbled back a little at the impact. The window didn’t look affected, so he backed up and rammed again. This time, he could see the impact at the window, spiderwebbing out. Progress.

A chill went through him, and his next breath came out cold. Dean only shoved harder and caused the spiderwebbing to expand. “Come on,” he muttered. “Come _on_!”

He had to get them out of there. Had to get Sam out of there. Then he could find Thomas before the spirit did whatever the hell it did before-

“Thomas!”

Dean whipped around and froze. There, standing in the corner near the door, was Thomas, eyes blank, body trembling.

He was too late.


	8. The Lightning Strike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I failed at posting it all by Halloween. But it's mostly done and will be posted by this weekend. Hope everyone had a great Halloween, and happy November!

It took everything Sam had to keep breathing at the sight of the teen, blank-faced and glowing. They hadn’t found Thomas in time, and now he was there, about to become the next victim of the spirit.

No. _No_. They weren’t going to lose anyone else. It was never too late unless someone gave up, and Sam had given up enough already. He wasn’t giving up now.

He pushed himself into motion, feet pounding on the creaking wooden floors. Thomas began to shake even more, glowing with a bright, blue flare. He could make it, there wasn’t any electricity yet, he could do it. He could save someone. Sam made a desperate grab for Thomas, even as Dean shouted behind him.

As soon as his fingers touched Thomas, there was a huge spark, and Sam found himself on the opposite side of the room. Thomas flared brighter and brighter, and Sam could only watch, stunned, as Thomas burned in a contained lightning storm. The others looked as if they were screaming, but he couldn’t hear anything over the high-pitched whine in his ears. The room spun alarmingly, but Sam couldn’t seem to move to make it stop.

When Thomas was nothing more than ashes, the light disappeared, and the room suddenly plunged into near-darkness. Sam blinked and tried to see in the vague moonlight that flooded the room through the window. It faded in and out, and he fought to see through encroaching darkness.

One blink, two blinks, and Dean was kneeling in front of him now. His lips were moving, but Sam couldn’t hear him over the high-pitched whine in his ears. He felt like he was underwater, but his right arm was on fire, god, no, not fire, Lucifer had drowned him once and then set him on fire, and it had taken so long with his skin water-soaked-

“-my, Sammy, _Sammy_, talk to me, hey, look at me, Sammy _look at me_.”

Sam blinked as sound came back in. Dean looked freaked. “Hey,” he mumbled.

Dean let out a sigh of relief. “Fuck, Sam, seriously,” he said. “Didn’t I teach you not to play with electricity?” As harsh as his tone was, his hands were gentle as they took Sam’s arm and lifted it.

Pain flared as all of Sam’s nerves came back online, and he couldn’t help the whimper when Dean touched his skin. Dean immediately let go, and the lines between his brow furrowed even more. “Sorry, sorry,” Sam whispered.

“Hey, hey, take it easy,” Dean murmured. Sam glanced at his arm and saw tendrils of black streaking out from where he’d touched Thomas. Lightning strike. He was lucky it hadn’t reached his heart.

A flash from his memory came to mind, but it wasn’t Lucifer this time, and he couldn’t help the snort of amusement. “What?” Dean asked, but he looked relieved to hear the sound.

Well, Dean wasn’t going to be relieved at the story. But he’d sworn after everything with Ruby and Lucifer that he would always be honest with his brother. “I, um, electrocuted myself last year,” he said. “I tried to fix a light but the damn contractors hadn’t done the grounding right.”

To Sam’s immense relief and surprise, Dean raised his eyebrow and almost looked…_amused_. “You played home improvement? You, who couldn’t fix a lightbulb at Bobby’s?”

“That light fixture was so old he couldn’t even get it out,” Sam groused. “I, uh, didn’t know it was the light at first. I thought it was a spirit.” He gave a sheepish grin. “Explaining why I was suddenly waving an EMF detector around and carrying salt with me was…interesting.”

Dean snorted, lips turned up. “I bet. She buy whatever line you sold her?”

He hadn’t really had a line, and anything he could’ve given her would’ve wound up at the same conclusion. “Not really. She asked if I was maybe reacting to the antidepressants like I had the antipsychotics. I told her sure, that was it, and then I fixed the light. Well, electrocuted myself and then fixed the light.”

Kristen and Aidan were huddled near the cracked window, Aidan clutching his salt cannister in front of him. Sam bit his lip, his arm stinging again. God he’d been so close, so _close_, but whatever the spirit had done, it had been too late. Thomas had probably been dead before he’d even reappeared. No, he couldn’t have been because he’d been lurching, like he’d been struggling to get free of something. That just made it worse.

His eyes drifted up to the ceiling, and the nagging feeling in the back of his head came up again. That thing that he’d forgotten. It was right there, if he could just remember it-

“Antidepressants?”

Sam turned to his brother who no longer looked amused. If anything, Sam would’ve guessed the emotion on his face was shocked. “You were on antidepressants?” Dean asked quietly. “And antipsychotics?”

Oh. Yeah, Sam had forgotten to tell Dean about that. He felt his face flush. “I wasn’t on the antipsychotics for more than a month,” he said, like that was going to make Dean feel better. If anything, Dean’s face darkened even more. “The antidepressants…yeah. I, um. I still have some. They help, sometimes.”

“And you were going to tell me when?” Dean asked, voice dangerously low.

Sam sighed. Well, that warm feeling from Dean’s declaration of trust hadn’t lasted long. “It’s not something I think about,” he muttered. “Definitely not something I _want_ to think about.”

Dean had vouched for him, had trusted him, had come through for him, _trusted_ him. And honestly, Sam hadn’t deserved it. He’d thought he was doing the right thing again, letting Dean go, and instead he’d abandoned his brother to Purgatory and all its horrors while he played house. It hadn’t been easy at all – no, living had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, but with Amelia and Riot, he’d managed. He’d gotten help, he’d gotten past a lot of the crap the Cage and Lucifer had thrown at him. It still had to be a million times better than whatever Dean had faced in Purgatory. He found himself bracing for the blow, either physical or verbally, and almost hoped it was physical. It would hurt less.

But Dean wasn’t shoving him aside. If anything, Dean looked like something was dawning on him at long last, a puzzle piece he hadn’t understood, and when he met Sam’s gaze, there was a pain in them he hadn’t expected to see. The look Dean gave Sam whenever he thought he’d let Sam down, that big brother look that Sam hadn’t seen in so damn long.

It was more than Sam could’ve hoped for, that maybe Dean understood, or at least accepted Sam’s not looking for him. God, his _betrayal_. And here Dean was, looking as if he were the one who’d dropped Sam off the deep end.

Sam’s next breath came out like mist, and both brothers immediately tensed. The spirit, or maybe the poltergeist.

_“Mine!”_

Well, that answered that. Sam pushed himself to his feet and felt the world spin. Not now, not _now_-

Dean caught him before he could go back down. “Can you do this?” he asked, handing Sam his gun back, worry in his eyes. Sam gave a firm nod.

The door rattled, and with it, the key in the lock started to shift. “Against the window,” he told the teens. Then he brought his gun up with unerring precision at the door.

He could do this. There was no other option. And he wasn’t letting Dean down. Not when he felt like they were finally back on the same page after so long.

The door banged once, twice, and the key swung around in the lock. Sam watched it dangle from the lock and kept his arms up. Dean had his own gun raised, arm nearly brushing against Sam’s. It didn’t slow the racing of his heart, but it did help keep his arm steady. The teens hid behind them, against the cracked window, and Sam knew Dean felt the same way he did: that if it came down to it, at least they’d stand between the poltergeist and the teens.

At least they could do that much.

The key stayed in the lock. The banging stopped. Silence fell. Sam tightened his grip on his gun and waited, because the poltergeist had shown no signs of giving up on anything. He was bound and determined to kill them. Had been, ever since Sam had seen him in the basement.

It flashed through his mind, instant and precise, and Sam gasped as he remembered. The HVAC, the floor in the kitchen, the ectoplasm, the ceiling, _the ceiling_. There had to be a way to access it, which meant-

Which meant that had to be the one place they hadn’t looked. That was the answer. They just had to get there. “Dean,” he said, and he tore his eyes from the door. “Dean, I remember what I saw. The ceiling, why it looks so weird.”

That was enough to catch his brother’s attention. “Wait, you do?” Dean asked, eyes wide. “Then what-?”

Suddenly something shattered in the other room. Sam hurried to the doorway and stared at the iron bar halfway through the small window. The door was ajar.

That was the only warning he got.

In an instant he flew across the room and hit the frame of the bed, hard. “Sam!” Dean shouted, but Sam fought to get to his feet. He watched Dean turn and fire two rounds into the poltergeist, heard the scream of rage as spirit disappeared.

“The iron bar,” Sam choked out. “Dean, the bar-“

Dean began to run towards the bar, only to spin around as the poltergeist appeared in front of Aidan and Kristen, bloody hands reaching for the both of them. Without hesitation Sam raised his own gun and fired a round through the poltergeist, sending him off again. That return time had been way too quick.

“Pour a circle of salt around you!” Sam shouted at Aidan. Aidan froze and Kristen wrenched the cannister out of his hands and began liberally pouring a salt circle around them. The air got even colder and a small breeze began to blow. Just enough to send salt crystals dancing across the floor with the dust.

Oh hell no.

“_Mine! Mine to kill!”_

The poltergeist was there again, eyes nearly black and flaring with flaming red, bloody hands reaching for the teens. Even as Sam raised his gun, the poltergeist stopped at the edge of the salt circle, unable to move any further. He glared at the teens who stood, frozen, mere inches from him.

Strangely, he didn’t try to push against the salt. Instead, he turned on Sam, fists clenched. _“Mine,” _he growled. Sam wasted no time in firing, sending the spirit disappearing in a wisp of smoke.

He took the time to quickly check his reserves and found only a handful of bullets left. _Shit_. “Dean!” he shouted. Where the hell was his brother?

Then he was flying across the room, sliding the last few feet to hit the open door between the rooms. His vision rolled as his head hit the door and his stomach rose to his throat. The poltergeist stood on the other side of the room, moving towards him, bloody hand outstretched towards him. “Leave him alone!” Kristen shouted. Sam desperately tried to find his feet and blink the dizziness away.

Suddenly two familiar boots were in front of him, attached to a very pissed-off big brother. With a shout Dean swung the iron bar into the poltergeist’s beard and face. The poltergeist disappeared, howling.

The only sound that filled the room was panting breaths, with some fast enough that Sam worried about Aidan passing out. “Breathe,” Kristen ordered, slapping him on the back. “I think it’s gone.”

“Yeah, iron bars rolled in salt have a bit more heft than others,” Dean said. He knelt in front of Sam and carefully pulled him to sitting. “How’s the head?”

Sam slowly shook his head. Any words now were probably going to come with vomit. Dean seemed to realize that and rested a hand against Sam’s chest. For some reason, it helped. Dean always helped.

It had been a long and horrible year without his brother. He was so damn grateful that he had Dean back.

After a minute he felt like he could stand again. With Dean’s help he managed to get to his feet, and he waved the teens off when it looked like they were coming to help. “Stay in the circle,” he managed to get out.

“We want to help,” Aidan said quietly. “Not just, just hide.”

“You are helping,” Dean told him. “The less we have to worry about protecting you guys, the better things are. Let’s see if we can’t finish that window off and get them out of here.” After making sure Sam would stay upright, he hefted the iron bar up.

Sam raised his eyebrow. “So you’re not going to fight me on staying?”

There were days that he could read Dean better than a book, and the look on his brother’s face spoke of resignation, yet gratitude. “Arguing with you is worse than arguing with a brick wall,” he said wryly. “Just…tell me if-“

“If you’re not leaving, neither am I,” Sam said firmly. “You’re stuck with me. I’m not losing you again.”

Dean slowly smiled, a real smile that made his brother look ten times younger than he really was. He didn’t need to say anything; it was all there in his eyes.

“Can we help with the window?” Aidan asked.

Sam shook his head and took the iron bar that Dean handed him. “You can stay out of the way. There might be glass flying, so keep yourself turned away. Dean?”

“Hang on,” Dean called. He’d headed over to the corner near the locked door to retrieve the clothes tree that he’d apparently dropped. “We’ll ram it together. Should be enough to handle it.” He rolled the clothes tree around in his hands, grin on his face.

He never saw the spirit appear behind him, spectacles shining in the moonlight. Sam dropped the iron bar, eyes wide, terror stealing his breath because no, no, _no_-

He’d never get a shot off with Dean right there, never be able to reach his brother in time, not as the hand reached for Dean’s head. Dean spun around and couldn’t move away fast enough-

And he was suddenly back a year and a half ago, with Dean about to disappear again.

“_No_!” he howled, voice ragged, desperate and absolutely _terrified_. “_NO_!”

Miraculously, the spirit paused. Dean was frozen beneath it, head still too close to its hand, and Sam stood and shook and shook. Not again. _Please, god, not again._

He choked on his next breath but managed to get the words out. “Take me. You want someone, _take me_. Not…not him. _Please_.”

Even as Dean’s eyes widened in horror, the spirit was already turning and flying across the room to him. “No, Sam, Sammy _no_!” Dean shouted.

Then the spirit was in front of him, hand outstretched, and the world went black.


	9. The Countdown

They were gone. Sam was gone. No poof, no sound, nothing. One minute he’d been standing there, and the next, he was gone, gone to wherever the spirit took people. Someplace they hadn’t found, someplace Dean knew nothing about, they were just _gone_. _Sammy_ was _gone_.

“Where did they go?” Aidan shouted. “Wh-what _happened_?”

“We have to find them!” Kristen shouted at the same time. “Where do we start? C’mon Dean, where do we look?”

And in that horrific moment, Dean knew nothing except the cold emptiness that was taking up room inside of his chest. Gone in an instant. Left no trace behind. Dean could only guess where they’d gone, and some voice inside his head, one that sounded a lot like Sam, said, _Now you know why I ran._

He’d left Sam behind. As horrible as Purgatory was, he’d had an ally in Benny, he’d had a mission to find Cas, get back to Sam. He’d had something to do day in, day out. Keep fighting. Get out. Then to find out that Sam hadn’t so much as looked for him, that Sam had just given up and checked out, it had felt like the worst kind of betrayal.

But now that he was standing here in Sam’s shoes, watching the only person he had left in the world disappear without a trace, he knew he wouldn’t have made it to the dog or the girl. He wouldn’t have made it out of the building. Sam had been alone after shotgunning it with Lucifer for months, and Dean was suddenly stupidly grateful that he’d even _had_ a brother to come back to. Antidepressants. Antipsychotics. Jesus he could’ve lost Sam and never known about it, and despite the numbness that was pervading his every thought, his stomach still rolled at the thought of Sam dead and alone.

Because this, this felt exactly like the numb terror that had consumed him when Sam had thrown himself into the Cage with Lucifer, or the fear that had gripped him when Sam had faded in front of him to his hallucinations and memories. Sam was gone, Sam was _gone_-

A crack sound hit him first even before the slap registered. His head whipped to the side and he stared in shock at Kristen. The teen was in his face, no longer in the salt circle, eyes red and terrified, but her lips were trembling with anger. “Snap _out_ of it!” she snarled. “We need you! _Sam_ needs you! You can’t just leave him! Didn’t you say he left you? Well, now you get to show him how _not_ to leave someone behind.”

The world sped back up, and with it his heart, which started hammering out of control. He felt like he was going to pass out. God, he’d lived on adrenaline in Purgatory, he could fucking _do this_. “Where do we even _look_?” Aidan wailed. “We never found Wanda or Thomas before they got fried!’

Okay, that was enough of that. “We look where the others vanished,” Dean said. He sounded like someone had taken a cheese grater to his throat, and both Kristen and Aidan winced. He tried to clear his throat but to no avail. “We go back to where they disappeared. There’s, there’s gotta be a pattern.”

“We have twenty-six minutes until Sam shows up with that thing,” Kristen pointed out. Dean stared, stunned, and Kristen pointed to her watch. “Each person disappeared for exactly thirty-one minutes by my count before they showed up to put on the pyro display. I don’t know what that means but at least we have time.”

“Krissy, god, they were our friends,” Aidan whispered. “You can’t just, just talk about their deaths that way-“

“I’ll talk about them any goddamn way I want,” she snapped. “I don’t give a fuck so long as we get out of here and get out _alive_. Because if we don’t get to Sam before that ghost does whatever it does to people, if we don’t guess where the ghost will take him, then he’ll go up in flames, and then it’ll come for one of us next. It’s not going to let us leave, Aidan. _We’re all going to die_.”

She stomped her foot for emphasis and suddenly shrieked as she began to fall through the floor. Dean snapped forward and grabbed her one arm, Aidan her fingers on her other hand. She held on tight and together they managed to pull her back to safety. The three of them sprawled out away from the hole, gasping for breath. “Let’s not do that again,” Aidan panted like he’d been the one to almost go through the floor.

Dean glanced through the hole and swallowed hard. The entry hall loomed beneath them, and he knew that the furnace lay directly beneath them in the basement. She would’ve kept on going. He could still see the singe marks from when Wanda had burned-

Wait.

Wait.

Waitwait_wait_.

He stumbled backwards and stared at the floorboards where Kristen had thrown a fit. It was blackened, too, rotted through because of the fire from Thomas. The rotten floor, where the rotten ceiling had been. “Holy shit,” he breathed.

“What?” Aidan and Kristen asked together. Neither one had gotten up from the floor.

One straight above the other, and all of them above the furnace. “This is it,” he murmured. “This, this is it. Fuck, Sammy had it right, that’s the connection-“

He dove over to the book in the bag and started thumbing through it. “What are you talking about?” Aidan asked. “What connection?”

Dean didn’t answer, there was no time. Fuck he had no idea how much time he had left to figure out where Sam would be, and if he got it wrong, it would mean he had no little brother left, and that wasn’t happening tonight. He would come for Sam.

Just like Sam had come for him. Sam hadn’t let him down. All of the crap they’d been dealt again, none of it mattered, because at the end of the day, it was Sam and Dean against the world, and they always, _always_ won. Because they couldn’t quit on each other. Sam hadn’t quit on him when it had seemed like there was no answer, but he’d dug and dug and he’d found Dean-

His eyes landed on the page with the picture, and he finally felt like he could breathe. This was it. This was what Sam had found and probably would’ve put together a hell of a lot sooner if he hadn’t had his head bashed in by the poltergeist. He glanced down through the hole again and back at the picture. “He had it. Sam had it right.” Then he glanced up. “The ceiling, why it looks so weird, don’t you get it? There used to be something there. Something that used to go past the second floor, _above _the second floor.”

“Wait,” said Aidan, and he sounded terrified. “Wait, you don’t mean-“

“I absolutely mean,” said Dean. He turned the book towards them and pointed at the picture. The Hollins House stood proudly in the black and white photograph, and in the photograph, there was a window above the second floor, shutters closed.

And in the middle of the house, rising up at least two feet from the roof above the window, stood the old brick chimney, the largest of the three chimneys.

“There’s no third floor. Those shutters are fake,” Kristen began, but Dean cut her off.

“Ten bucks they’re not. No, they were closed to handle the drafts, or just closed because fuck, they liked the look of it better. Don’t know, don’t care. The point is that there used to be a chimney through the house and they took it out, and it’s right where everyone’s burned up. And it goes up through the third floor. Dammit there’s a _third floor _or an attic or _something_.” One that he had no idea how to get to.

“So Sam was right,” Aidan said. “He kept saying the ceilings looked weird, kept looking at them.”

God he had, hadn’t he? Maybe the year off doing more domestic things had done his brother some good. Well, it clearly had, because the kid was the strong brother he remembered before Lucifer, before Ruby, because he’d gotten on medication he’d needed and he’d gotten a support system. One Dean was finally appreciative of because Sam’s Stone Number One had vanished in front of him, and if he looked over at the corner where Sam had been, he was going to start screaming.

Speaking of. Dean froze, another realization coming at him like a fastball. “What?” Aidan all but shrieked. “What? You figured something else out, didn’t you? Like the attic wasn’t bad enough?”

“He hasn’t screamed,” Dean murmured. Kristen stared at him, understanding dawning and making her look green. “Everyone else screamed.”

Wanda and Thomas had both screamed with moment of being taken by the spirit. Sam hadn’t. He didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not, and he thought he’d be sick.

He was going to find Sam, dammit. “Kristen, how much time left?” he demanded.

Kristen turned to her phone. “Um, nineteen minutes, no, eighteen now.”

Fuck. Eighteen minutes and he couldn’t be wrong. He closed his eyes and wished for the millionth time that Cas was there. _God, Cas, I need you_. Hell, Benny could’ve helped, could’ve backed him up.

But at the end of the day, what he’d said to Sam was still true. There was no one else he wanted to hunt with, no one else he trusted more than Sam. Ironically, he needed Sam to help him find Sam the most. If this was Dean who’d been taken, Sam would’ve found the spot already.

That, he didn’t doubt in the slightest. Not anymore.

“Come on,” Dean said. “Upstairs, let’s go.”

“Wait, upstairs? With the closed-off window?” Kristen exclaimed. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Dean said. He hurried down the hall and didn’t wait to see if Thing 1 and Thing 2 followed. He had a brother to find.

The look on Sam’s face when the spirit had almost had him was going to haunt his nightmares for a while. Sam had looked like his world had ended. The terror on his face, the desperation in his voice, all to keep Dean from vanishing again.

And then Sammy had vanished instead. Probably thought it was penance or something for not looking for Dean, and god, Dean hadn’t missed that self-sacrificing nature of his brother. Benny had put himself in danger for Dean a time or two, and Dean for him, but he’d never sacrificed himself for Dean, not like Sam did.

_Goddammit Sammy you better be okay. Please be okay._

The hallway offered no options to go up. He hesitated because he had to watch out for the teens but they didn’t have time to do what they needed to do together. Kristen took the decision out of his hands, though, and grabbed Aidan’s hand. “We’ll search this end,” she said. “We’ll scream if we die. Just go look. Go!”

Aidan sputtered but followed after, and Dean’s eyes burned because they were putting themselves at risk for Sam. For Dean. And they had no reason to and he swore to himself that they were all getting out. All of them. Kristen, Aidan, _Sam._

Dean started frantically searching the rooms one by one, racing along the walls, eyes darting to the ceilings. No holes, no attic entry-points, nothing. They couldn’t have seriously cut off the way into the third floor, could they? Who would be so damn stupid?

He was running out of time.

“Nine minutes,” Kristen panted as Dean stumbled out of another room. “We searched the other end, there’s nothing. Dean, I’m…I’m sorry.”

Dean froze. No. That- no. Unacceptable, not happening.

Aidan shivered. “Man, it’s getting cold again. You don’t think…?”

“Too soon,” Kristen snapped at him, suddenly all anger again. “God, don’t say shit like that! And the EMF thing would’ve gone off, right?”

“Not that spirit, no! I was talking about the other one, the, um, nastier one. The one who killed Chris. He keeps showing up after the other spirit.”

Dean had almost forgotten about that stupid poltergeist. That was all he needed to show up. He’d already thrown Sam through the basement wall, killed Chris, and tossed Dean into the basement behind the door only the poltergeist had known about.

Dean nearly choked on his tongue. “We need the salt again,” Kristen said, but Dean shook his head.

“No you don’t. You’re gonna let him come.”

“_What_?” Aidan shrieked. “He kicked your ass and Sam’s! And he _killed _Chris! Who knows what he’ll do to us!”

The scream of pure rage echoed through the main foyer, but this time, Dean didn’t turn to run. He tightened his hand on the book and stood. Waiting.

“You’re insane,” Kristen told him. She stared at him and actually backed away, which was probably in her best interest. He was pretty sure he looked as crazed as he felt, eyes wide in desperation, heart thudding in horrible, terrified hope. “You’re _mad_. You think he’s going to what, show you where the door to the third floor is?”

“That’s exactly what I think he’s going to do,” Dean said.

“Why do you think he’s going to do anything for us?” Aidan asked. “I mean, he wants us dead.”

_He keeps showing up after the other spirit._

The poltergeist didn’t want them, not really. He kept chasing the spirit, showing up just too late. Dean hadn’t hit the spirit with the salt shells, he’d disappeared because the poltergeist had been coming.

Running. He’d been running from the poltergeist.

“He wants the spirit,” Dean murmured.

“What?”

“He didn’t kill Chris because he wanted him dead, the spirit had tried to grab Chris, remember?” And then the poltergeist had killed Chris instead. For whatever reason, the poltergeist had saved Chris from a kidnap-and-kill situation. Well. By killing him faster and far bloodier, but still. He’d torn Chris from the spirit’s grasp. The poltergeist wanted the spirit.

And Dean had just decided he was going to let him have him.

“You’re going to risk us, risk yourself, on the chance that the poltergeist is going to open the hidden door to the upstairs because he wants the spirit?”

“I am.” And he wasn’t kidding, not even a little.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kristen gasped.

Dean stared at her and watched as realization dawned on her, and following right behind it, horror. The air was getting colder, the howl was getting louder, and time was running out and Dean didn’t give two shits, because none of it mattered, not without Sam. There hadn’t been anything else to come back to except him. The only person that Dean couldn’t do this stupid life without.

“He’s my brother,” he said simply. “And I’m going to get him back.”

With that, Dean turned to the atrium and shouted, “You want the spirit, you stupid sonuvabitch? All yours. You open the doors and I’ll hold him still for you.”

The air went absolutely icy just as the howl cut off, and suddenly Dean was staring into black eyes. Kristen gasped and Aidan yanked her backwards. Dean didn’t breathe.

The poltergeist tipped his head to the side, so much like Cas that for a second Dean almost choked, but then the rotten grin stretched across his face, almost maniacally. “_I want him,” _the poltergeist whispered. “_Give him to me.”_

“All yours,” Dean said shakily. “Just show me where the damn door upstairs is.”

Minutes. He had minutes and no real plan.

The poltergeist suddenly laughed, high and _wrong_, and Dean covered his ears. The ceiling gave way above him, and he threw himself out of the way. Something hard landed on his shoulder, something hard and sharp, and he cried out. His shoulder went numb and left him without air for a minute.

A minute too long. The dust cleared and Dean managed to turn himself around with his good arm.

Beams jutted down from the ceiling, two of them making a ragged ramp all the way up to the ceiling. Above him, in through the hole, Dean could see the large expanse of another ceiling, wooden beams covered in cobwebs that danced in the freshly found breeze. It looked like an attic. Third floor, just like he’d thought.

He tried to move and gasped as the beam on his shoulder refused to budge. Slowly he managed to push himself up enough to look at his shoulder. A thick nail dug straight into the muscle, and he barely managed to keep from screaming when the beam shifted and twisted the nail into his flesh. God, worse than those nurses who tried to get the needle in on the first try but kept wiggling it instead.

Time, what time was it? He had to get upstairs, had to-

“Oh my god, Krissy! Hurry!”

Aidan quickly got on one side of the beam, and Kristen appeared on the other. Her face was ashen, and for the first time all night, she looked properly frightened. “The nail-“

“Just do it,” Dean grunted. Kristen still hesitated, and Dean growled at her. “We’re runnin’ outta time, jus’ _do it_.”

They lifted the beam, and Dean felt black dots encroach on his vision as pain seared through him, burning like fire through his shoulder and out to his fingertips and toes. When he came back to himself, the teens were kneeling next to him. Behind them, the poltergeist appeared, and Dean felt a frisson of fear run through him. Not as bad as William at the hotel all those years ago, wielding that goddamn axe, but this poltergeist was just as messed up. And Dean had just let it walk.

Sammy. He had to get to Sammy.

“Can you climb the beams?” Dean asked breathlessly. There were smaller boards attached to the beams, enough to make a haphazard ladder. It would have to do.

Kristen spun around and nearly went face to face with the poltergeist. She screamed and scurried backward, and he followed her, nails like claws coming down after her. “No!” Dean shouted, hurrying to his feet. Fuck, shit, that had _hurt_. He threw his good arm out to get between Kristen and the poltergeist. “You want the spirit, not her. Don’t waste your energy on her or him or me. I want that spirit dead and gone too.”

The poltergeist turned him and hissed. “_He is mine. Give him to me.”_

“Yeah, broken record,” Dean muttered. “He took my brother, but I’m willing to give him to you _if_ you behave.”

God, maybe Purgatory _had_ knocked a few screws loose. He was scolding a poltergeist. Either he was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.

…Probably a mix of both.

_“Let me in,” _the poltergeist said angrily. “_Let me IN_.”

Clutching at his shoulder, Dean glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. A few dark pipes ran the length of the hole, broken and rusted. Iron. But then how the hell had the spirit gotten upstairs?

The fireplace. Somehow, the spirit was traveling through the discarded fireplace, and the poltergeist couldn’t. “Gimme a minute,” Dean said. “Kristen, Aidan, with me. We need to remove the pipe enough for him to get up.”

“Yeah, okay,” Kristen said after a moment, sounding far more subdued and dumbfounded. Aidan just nodded meekly.

A few minutes left was all he had. Grimacing against the pain in his shoulder, Dean hoisted the bag over his shoulder, grabbed hold of the wooden beams, and started to climb.

The upstairs smelled like mold and mildew, dust and trapped air. He pulled himself up and out of the hole with the remnants of what looked like a staircase railing. They’d seriously just cut off the third story, no questions asked. It was the _why_ that Dean didn’t know.

He didn’t care at the moment. The room was empty, silent as a tomb. Where was Sam?

His stomach twisted. He couldn’t have gotten this wrong. Everything he cared about was running on him being right about this. “Please, please, please,” he murmured. “Sammy, where are you?”

A wind began to brush past him. It gained momentum, slowly but surely, and his hair began to fly. He glanced around and found Kristen and Aidan hovering just outside the hole, peering around upstairs. “Get that pipe out of there,” he called over the increasing wind. “And pour some salt around the hole: we’re not letting that sonuvabitch out until we’re ready for him.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” Kristen shouted back.

Dean glared at her. “Just kick it, hit it, I don’t care! Just get it-“

A bright light suddenly appeared, and Dean turned to the middle of the room. The whirlwind increased, getting louder and louder and higher and higher. The light grew and made it almost impossible to see, but there in the middle of the light-

Dean’s eyes watered but damn if he was going to close his eyes. He wouldn’t, couldn’t. If he did, he was terrified that he might lose sight of his brother.

Sam was suspended in the air, floating at least ten feet off the ground. His hair and clothes were being spun around in the whirlwind but it was his eyes that Dean couldn’t stop staring at. His eyes shone bright white, the same bright light that flooded the room. His gaze was empty and there was no one home. No one except for the damned spirit that wouldn’t let him go.

It didn’t stop him from trying to reach his brother. “Sam!” Dean shouted. He could barely hear his own voice as it was carried away by the wind. “_Sammy!_”

He stared, horrified, as the light only got brighter and brighter. Sam wasn’t shaking, at least, not like Wanda and Thomas had, and despite him being blank-faced, he seemed almost cognizant. Something like life flickered in his eyes, and Dean moved forward, arm aching but he didn’t care, because his brother was in there. “Fight him,” Dean called. “Sammy, fight him!”

Then Sam’s mouth opened, but it wasn’t his voice that came out. Part Sam, part something else, an accent that didn’t belong to his brother. “_I have waited so long,_” said the spirit, “_waited for one that could hold me. One I couldn’t burn through. He is perfect. He will be mine._”

Dean stared, stunned, frozen because no, god _no_. The spirit tipped Sam’s head down, white-bright eyes suddenly staring past the group, and Dean spun around to see the poltergeist staring back. Kristen and Aidan hid against the wall, huddled with each other, and the hole had no pipes in it. The salt circle was the only thing keeping him back.

No. Oh god _no_.

The poltergeist let out a howl that made every hair on Dean’s neck stand up. _“You are mine_,” the poltergeist screamed. “_Mine to do with what I will!”_

“_No longer,_” the spirit hissed, and Sam’s lips were pulled into a snarl. “_Now, now I have a body strong enough to stand against you. This time, I will win._”

_“You locked me away,” _the poltergeist said, eyes black and red. _“You couldn’t win then, so you locked me away. You were right to fear me.”_

The spirit glared at the poltergeist. _“I will never fear you again. Now, you will fear me.”_

Shit fuck sonuvabitch, he’d gotten this one so wrong. The spirit hadn’t been trying to kill people, he’d been trying to inhabit them, but he’d been too much for them. No one had survived.

No one until Sam. Sam, a vessel for an archangel. Sam, who had offered himself, _sacrificed_ himself, to save Dean, just so he wouldn’t have to watch Dean disappear again. The poltergeist had been trying to keep people from becoming vessels for the spirit, but in his own fury and anger had killed them instead.

And now the spirit and poltergeist were going to go _mano a mano _and Sam was going to end up being the collateral damage. And suddenly, Dean was viciously, ferociously, _angry_.

Sam’s body descended slightly, still coursing with light, hair and clothes flying in the gusts created by the spirit. He was still hovering a good foot off the ground, but it was low enough that Dean could grab him.

Another huge gust of wind came from behind, and Dean glanced back to see the salt circle around the poltergeist start to fly around. No, not fly around: the front of the circle was being shoved back and away, and Dean’s eyes widened. A poltergeist that could move _salt_?

He was out of time. This was about to be a bloodbath of epic proportions, and if Dean didn’t get to Sam first, the poltergeist would cut right through him.

From the side of the room, Kristen screamed as the poltergeist roared again. Aidan shoved her as far behind him as he could, though his own face was filled with fear. The poltergeist had no eyes for them, though, only Sam. Sam and the spirit inside of him.

Dean frantically dropped the bag and searched to see what he had on hand, what was available to him, what he could use to get the spirit out of Sam. Something, anything, _come on, Dean_. He had a shotgun with one shell left, a pistol with iron rounds, and half of one salt carton left. He could shoot Sam with the shotgun, but it could just as easily kill his brother. Also, shooting Sam wasn’t really on his list of things to do-

The temperature in the room suddenly dropped, and Dean didn’t think, he just grabbed the salt and _ran_. The poltergeist’s scream behind him was one of vengeance and rage, and it was getting louder. Ahead of him, the spirit stood tall, Sam’s body still hovering above the ground, and there was determination in his gaze. Waiting, just waiting, not even looking at Dean, just standing and glaring and getting brighter as it waited.

Dean’s feet felt faint beneath him, as if they weren’t attached, or if he were swimming. Everything seemed slow around him, slow-motion, and he was sure he was watching through someone else’s eyes. Watched as Sam’s body hovered in the air and went so bright it was impossible to see him, and he moved forward towards him by instinct alone. The poltergeist’s scream was impossibly loud behind him, rattling every bone in his body, and all he could see was Sam Sam _Sam_-

And then Sam was right in front of him, still unmoving. Dean ripped the container of salt all the way open and hit Sam around the waist, crushing the container between his own body and Sam’s and spilling all of the salt everywhere. For a long moment, it was as if he’d hit a brick wall, and his shoulder against Sam screamed in agony. The light burned against him, hotter than any fire he’d brushed against, too hot to handle, he couldn’t hold on-

The next moment, Sam’s body gave way and they both tumbled to the ground. The burning disappeared immediately, as did the light. Sam hit the ground gracelessly beneath him, eyes closed, body pale and still. Dean spun around and found the wiry old man’s spirit shrieking where Sam’s body had been. Rage on the spirit’s face quickly gave way to fear because the poltergeist had been right behind Dean, and he was still pissed.

“Get downstairs!” Dean shouted behind him at the teens, then turned back to his brother. Sam still wasn’t moving and there was no time to try and get him elsewhere. Dean pulled as much of his brother in to him and then covered Sam as best he could. His heart pounded in his chest as he felt the poltergeist approach, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Suddenly an inhuman howl went up, fury and fear and desperation and _rage_ that increased in volume with each passing second. A bright light shone that Dean could see even beyond his closed eyes, and he flinched, reaching blindly to find Sam’s head and pulling it up and burying his brother’s face in his chest. The air behind him felt like getting shocked, charged like a lightning strike, and for a moment he felt as if he were back in Purgatory, where the air was always laden with the threat of another monster. His muscles tightened in response, coiled and ready to strike.

A pained whimper came from under his chin. Sam. He had Sam. He wasn’t there and he had Sam. This wasn’t a time to fight. This was a time to protect the most precious thing he’d ever had in his life. He bunched his muscles again, this time to create a protective barrier between his little brother and the looming threat.

The shriek continued to rise, and there was heat at his back now, prickling along his skin. It was getting closer, and Dean gripped his fingers tight in Sam’s jacket. He had to get out of there, had to get Sam out, because whoever won this prize fight was going to be _pissed_.

But with Sam still unconscious he couldn’t begin to try and move him, much less skirt around two dangerous spirits. He managed to shove himself and Sam forward, his heart pounding in his throat. “Sam,” he whispered fervently, and dared to open his eyes. The light around them was piercing, causing him to wince and cringe, and Sam still didn’t move. “_Sam_!”

“_Wrong!_”

Dean whipped around into the light and stared. Two forms whirled around each other in the light, barely discernable for how bright it was. Every now and then he could see the angry face of the poltergeist and the frightened but still angry face of the spirit. “_Wrong!_” the poltergeist hissed. “_Mine!_”

“_Y-You don’t understand!_” the spirit wailed. “_No, no, not again!_”

“_Mine to kill! You are mine to kill again!_”

Suddenly the poltergeist plunged his fist into the spirit’s chest. The spirit shrieked in pain and latched onto the arm still stuck inside of him. The poltergeist flickered and shook. “_If I go, you go with me!_” the spirit choked, something bubbling and frothing at its lips.

The poltergeist’s face lit up with pain as he flickered, but then he grinned, wide and horrible. “_See you in hell_.”

The light grew so bright and hot that Dean was forced to look away. There was another pained shriek and shit shit _shit_, this was going to end poorly. He forced himself to his feet and hauled Sam towards the corner, up against something dark and cold. There, behind it, was a niche, and it was pure adrenaline that allowed Dean to drag Sam and himself into the tiny space. He grabbed Sam to him, threw his arms and legs around his brother, and buried his head in Sam’s hair.

There were two seconds of nothing, two seconds of harsh breaths and bracing for the worst, and then everything exploded. Heat shot past Dean that felt like fire, and the floor and walls shook ominously. The structure beside them rained down sharp pieces, and Dean pulled Sam impossibly tighter to him. _Please, please, please, let him get out of this. Please-_

The light went so bright that he could see white beneath his eyelids, and then everything suddenly went dark.

Everything came back slowly. His toes came back first, strangely enough, and they felt wrong. Pins and needles, cramping that spread up through the arches of his feet and into his calves. He hissed and shifted as much as he could, which was very little. Something was holding him down, pinning him into a tiny cage.

Panic surfaced as he tried to blink and realized that his eyes were open, it was just pitch black. He couldn’t get himself to move from his tiny prison, curled up with his knees to his chest and his head bent uncomfortably low, and no, not again, he wasn’t there, please no, he was out, _he was out_-

“Sammy?”

That voice. That wasn’t _him_. That was the one voice he could trust, the one that had always steered him right. Even pissed off as hell and loathing him, Sam would rather have that voice than any other.

“Sam, you with me?”

Something shifted, and Sam realized that his prison had been more a fortress of big brother. Dean tentatively shifted again and backed away, and the pins and needles feeling intensified. Sam hissed as everything came back online at once, and he jerked, trying to get away from it.

“Easy, easy. Take it easy.” Dean took one of Sam’s flailing limbs and began rubbing it down, almost too hard and to the point of pain. After a few moments, however, the pain receded into something acceptable.

When he could finally move, Sam gingerly began to rise. Dean caught him by the elbows and helped him out of the hole Dean had put them in. “What happened?” Sam finally asked.

Dean pursed his lips. “What do you remember?” he asked back.

Nothing worth remembering. Shouting to take Dean’s place, cold hands on him, inside of him, forcing his way in much as Lucifer had, _Oh this will do nicely_, and then being shoved into the farthest recesses of his mind, knocked out and unable to do anything until he’d woken up with Dean.

“That’s what I thought,” Dean said softly at the look on his face. “You okay? How's the head?”

Sore and ringing and every part of him was exhausted. “I want to get out of here,” Sam admitted with a shiver. “Are they…?”

“Canceled each other out, I think. Huge light show. They were talking, though.”

Sam blinked. “Talking?” he asked.

Dean raised his eyebrow in return, looking just as bemused. “Right? The spirit who kept grabbing everybody was looking for someone to ride. He just burned everyone else out, but you-“

“Yeah, me. Perfect vessel,” Sam spit out. It had been Lucifer’s favorite phrase in the Cage besides “bunk buddy.” It made Sam want to be sick.

“Built to house something with serious firepower, so yeah. And not gonna lie, I’m sort of glad you could, y’know. House something bigger than him.” Dean stared at him, open as could be. “He burned through everyone else. You survived.”

There was more there that Dean wasn’t saying, but Sam knew what his brother looked like worried, and this was pretty much it. “So they talked,” he said, steering the conversation back to something safer and less chick-flick.

“Yeah, talked. Spirit said that the poltergeist didn’t understand. Poltergeist basically told him to shove it, and said the spirit was ‘mine to kill’,” Dean quoted. “Spirit told him they’d both die, and the poltergeist literally told him ‘see you in hell’.”

For all their lack of talking when they’d initially shown it, it was far more verbosity than Sam had expected from their ghosts. “Wow.”

“Yeah, wow. How about we get out of here and we can deliberate later?”

“Guys? Please tell me you’re okay?”

Aidan’s tremulous voice actually made Sam grin. Dean rolled his eyes. “We’re fine,” he called.

“So you’re not, um, dead, right?” He sounded as if he were distanced, not on the same floor. Sam frowned and glanced around until he saw the massive hole in the floor. It looked like two floor beams had cracked and tumbled to the floor below, taking the attic’s flooring with it. It made for a nice ramp.

“They can’t answer if they’re dead, moron,” Kristen muttered. “Can we go now? Please tell us we can go now.”

“Yeah, we can go now. Wait for us,” Dean called. He reached over to Sam, hand at his elbow. A gentle presence, a reminder that his big brother was there. “You good?” he asked.

Sam smiled, even as it made his face hurt. “Yeah. I’m good.” He stepped towards the ramp and frowned as something round went under his foot. He stepped back and reached down to catch it.

There on the floor were several small marbles. Little glass marbles, a child’s favorite plaything. _Daniel, the only son of Winston, loved to play with his prized possession, a bag of glass marbles. _

Slowly Sam’s eyes rose to the black structure in the middle of the room, the one that had buffeted them from the light show. “Sam?” Dean asked, on alert.

The stone was so old and black that it didn’t really resemble a fireplace. It was also in the middle of the room. Tentatively Sam reached up and into the chimney, digging his fingers into the crevice that had been blown apart by the ghosts.

His fingers met glass that rolled at his touch. Sam shut his eyes tight.

“Sam?”

In answer, Sam grabbed a marble from inside the chimney and handed it to Dean. Dean took it in silence, then moved over to the ramp down. “We’re leaving, but not yet. Aidan, we need the book on the house.”


	10. The Blessing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a handful of days after Halloween, not too shabby! 
> 
> Thank you for reading the fic and if you enjoyed it, drop me a line! I'd love to know which part scared you, if any. I'll be working on the sequel to We Will Not Be Torn Asunder next throughout the month of NaNoWriMo here, as well as another piece I've had cooking for a bit. Here's hoping I can have a few things posted before too long.
> 
> You guys are the best. You keep me rolling. Thanks for your support.

Fourteen little marbles in a leather drawstring bag. There was no amount of firepower available to them to melt down glass marbles, but a blessing would do the trick just as well. It just took longer and required more ingredients.

It was clearly eating at Sam, though, and Dean knew why. They’d thought that little Daniel was their spirit. The kid had gone missing, the same as everyone else in the house. It just made the most sense to be him.

And then, of the two spirits, not one of them had been Daniel. The little boy that they’d probably never find, but he hoped like hell that purifying the glass marbles would give the boy some modicum of peace. Neither of them felt like digging for a body they might never even find. 

A family portrait finally put the last pieces into place. Winston had looked far more handsome in the photo than he did as a poltergeist, but the beard had been unmistakable. Which had left their spirit with the spectacles unnamed and unknown.

It was Sam who ultimately put together the puzzle after digging some more. Well, digging more after they got out of the house and back to the motel to ravage their first aid kit and sleep. Between Dean’s mangled and bruised shoulder from both wall and nail, Sam’s knee and shoulder, and then both of them dealing with concussions, neither of them were capable of doing much except rest. Sam’s concussion had kept Dean on edge and constantly checking on his little brother who either slept the sleep of the dead or huddled in the bathroom, stomach refusing to settle.

“The spirit was the last guest who stayed in the house,” Sam said, leaning back against the passenger seat, laptop in his lap. He looked worse now in the daylight, bandage across his forehead, one eye getting a little black around the edges, face still pale. “He wasn’t one of the disappearances. His real name was Vincent Smith and he smuggled alcohol. He was a well-known name in prohibition circles until he suddenly stopped coming around. His name’s all over the record books of the town. He stopped through a lot. The library had one of the guestbooks from the Hollins House and he’s listed as a guest, but his reason for visiting was always _private business_.”

“So Winston didn’t know?” Dean guessed.

Sam raised his eyebrow. “Winston was a god-fearing man and a teetotaler. Alcohol wasn’t allowed in the house, not even for guests. So no. He wouldn’t have known, and he definitely wouldn’t have approved.”

“So Winston found out, killed him.”

“There’s Daniel, too,” Sam said softly, and Dean froze. Oh god no. “I think…I think Vincent killed Daniel. Maybe Daniel found his hidden liquor while hiding his marbles, and before he could tell his dad, Vincent silenced him.”

Dean turned over the idea, slowly putting together the timeline. “He goes missing. Dad goes looking. Finds a fallen marble in the fireplace. Finds Daniel upstairs. Puts two and two together, kills Vincent. Maybe throws him down the stairs. Has a heart attack.”

Sam nodded slowly. “And they’ve been duking it out ever since – Vincent in anger over not being able to hold his own against Winston, Winston at Vincent taking his only son.”

And Daniel, caught somewhere in the middle. Maybe he’d been sent on early by Winston. Maybe he was still there. The blessing would dispel him from the marbles if that was the thing tying him there. Dean was pretty sure the kid was gone, though, and it was clear Sam was thinking the same thing.

“I hate when it’s kids,” he finally said.

Sam grimaced. “Yeah. Me too.”

It was a question that Dean hadn’t really let himself ask, but he’d be foolish to not do so now, not when Sam had cracked the door to their mutual year apart. Well, he’d done more than crack it open, he’d flung it so far open that it had smacked the proverbial wall in its wake. It was Dean who couldn’t ask, didn’t want to know. Antidepressants, antipsychotics. Fear of Dean missing so much that he’d sacrificed himself instead.

But it was about Sam. Why wouldn’t he want to know?

“Did, uh.” He cleared his throat, felt Sam’s gaze pin him to the spot. “Did you and Amelia ever consider having…?”

Sam stared, clearly stunned. It sort of made Dean feel even more like a heel. “Um, no. We weren’t…no.” He gave a small snort of amusement. “We always figured that Riot was all the child we needed.”

After a moment, the smile slid away. “I don’t think I would’ve ever wanted kids with her, though.”

“But you do?” Dean found himself asking. “Want kids?”

Sam’s face went a dull shade of red. “I don’t know,” he tried to say flippantly, but Dean saw right through him. It made his cracked heart break just a little bit more.

Sam deserved kids. Sam would make the world’s best dad. And Dean would love to be the uncle that corrupted the kid, if he himself survived that long.

It just made him all the more determined to see Sam get out of hunting for good. Sam deserved that happy ever after, the white picket fence, the kids that he’d raise right but still protect. It made Dean’s chest ache to think about.

Sam nudged his leg and caught the knee, making Dean wince. “You all right?” Sam asked, neatly changing the subject. Bitch. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Sucks, but I’ve had worse. The tetanus shot hurt more, and I didn’t need it anyway.”

“Technically, you were due.”

“Technically, I still had a year. It’s in my phone as next year.”

“Yeah, well, they keep changing how long until you get a booster, and it’s safer this way.”

Safe. That word encapsulated everything about normal that Sam desperately wanted. _Not normal. Safe. _That’s what he’d said when Dean had picked him up in Stanford, too. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about keeping up with the Jones or what color fence he had. It was always about being safe.

And in the end, that was all Dean wanted for him, too. All he’d ever wanted for Sam was to be safe.

“You sure you’re okay? Want me to drive when we’re done here?”

“Yes I am and no you’re not,” Dean said firmly. “I can drive.” Then, realizing how it had probably come out, he added, “You’re not driving while you’ve still got a concussion.”

Sam let out a deep sigh that was all little brother. “I’ve had concussions before, Dean.”

“You spaced out on me _twice_ on the hunt, Sam. Stumbled around because your balance was screwed, and you couldn’t remember anything. Never mind the vomiting afterward. Did I mention the spacing out? Twice?”

“The second time was because I couldn’t hear thanks to Thomas exploding.”

Which Sam hadn’t said anything about at the time, because of course he hadn’t. “Oh, yeah, definitely proving your point there, Sam. Which, by the way, maybe don’t touch lightning?”

Sam just rolled his eyes, then cringed. Still had a headache, then, and Dean forced back his worry. He’d been itching to get out of town since they’d gotten out of the house and put the final pieces together, but Sam had insisted they stay.

The reason for staying was currently walking up the dirt road towards them. They’d parked near Kristen’s grandmother’s farm, an easy place for them to meet, and nowhere near prying eyes or the Hollins House. Sam carefully pulled himself out of the car, and Dean had no choice but to follow. Better to get it over and done with. Besides, despite wanting to tear down the road, Dean _did_ want to know how the two survivors were doing.

Aidan actually looked better than Kristen. He wasn’t slouched over, and he held himself straight up. He gave a weak smile and wave as they approached, and he kept himself slightly ahead of and to the right of Kristen. Well, well, well. Kid had maybe done some growing up last night.

Unfortunately, so had Kristen, but in a not so great way. Instead of the sassy teen he’d met the night before, Dean was now confronted with a very quiet, almost timid young woman. It was a bad look on her. “Hey,” he said, and Kristen met his gaze. “You made it.”

“Yeah,” she finally said, voice soft. “Guess I did.”

“Thanks to you two,” Aidan said confidently. “We’d never have made it without the both of you.”

Sam smiled faintly. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for you two, either. We all got each other out of the house.”

“They’re not coming back, right?”

Dean shook his head. “All gone, kid,” he told Aidan. “Both spirits went poof.”

“What about Wanda? Or Chris, or Thomas?”

Kristen’s whisper-like voice still cut through the afternoon air. She wrapped her arms around herself and Dean couldn’t help but hear a phantom of Sam’s voice. _Safe_. Her world of normal had been taken from her and safe was a pipedream now. She knew the worst of what there could be and it clearly wasn’t sitting well with her.

Sam carefully moved to her and rested a hand on her shoulder. She met his gaze almost defiantly though, and Dean felt his lips turn up at the sight. Still had some spark in her. She’d be okay. “We cleaned the entire house before we came here to meet you,” Sam told her. “If there were any spirits lingering, they’ve moved on to rest now.”

Her shoulders came down a solid inch. “Thanks,” she said. Then she frowned. “How are you even upright? Like, for real here. You got smacked pretty hard and I don’t know what a ghost wearing you like a coat had to do for your head. Should you even be standing up?”

Frightened and even deeply changed by the night before, but still willing to sass Sam on his inability to take care of himself. Dean honestly thought about adopting her. “You probably should sit down,” Aidan suggested, making a face, and Dean just shook his head in wonder. Who knew the kid had had the stones in him?

Sam glowered at the both of them and leaned on the side of the Impala. Yeah, they weren’t going to out-stubborn the most stubborn individual Dean had ever known. Kristen rolled her eyes. “Typical male,” she muttered, but her lips turned up when she met Dean’s gaze.

“So,” Aidan said, drawing out the vowel, “what _did_ happen? Did you guys find Daniel?”

It was the one last thing that Dean wished he could do. He’d already pulled Chris out and called in an anonymous 911 call for them to find him. At least Chris’s family would have closure. There wasn’t much he could do for Thomas and Wanda’s families. “The poltergeist was the original owner of the bed and breakfast, the other guy was a bootlegger. We think the bootlegger killed Daniel to hide his smuggling, and the poltergeist killed him in retaliation.”

“He killed the guy with the glasses out of…love?” Kristen asked, eyes wide. “Like an angry dad looking for vengeance?” She glanced at her feet. “How does someone like that turn into…that?”

“Years of anger and hatred do a lot to someone’s soul,” Sam said quietly.

Silence fell, broken by the breeze and the singing of the birds. Dean cleared his throat. “But no Daniel. Just the bag of marbles that needs one final blessing.”

“We could use your help,” Sam said, surprising Dean. “It works better with more people.”

Even more surprising were the reactions of the teens: both looked relieved. “Yeah,” Kristen said. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Guess Sam had read the teens pretty well. Dean grabbed the bag out of the back and handed Aidan the salt. Aidan gave a sheepish grin and took the cannister. “You guys have a million of these,” he asked. “Do you buy bulk?”

“The nitty gritty of hunting no one asks about,” Dean joked. “Buying salt by the truckload.” He nodded towards Sam and Kristen, who were gathered near the front of the Impala, off to a small patch of flat road. “You guys gonna be okay?” he asked, pitching his voice low.

Aidan bit his lip but slowly nodded. “Watching them all die, getting chased around by that poltergeist, I mean, my chest actually hurts from my heart beating so hard for so long. But we made it out. And, I mean, we’re the only ones who know what really happened.”

“Keep it that way,” Dean said. “If you need to talk to someone about it, call one of us. And keep an eye on each other, too.”

Aidan blushed straight to his hairline, and Dean rolled his eyes. “Keep an eye on each other in a way that’s got nothing to do with your obvious crush, kid.”

“Don’t tell her,” Aidan said, eyes wide. “Please?”

If Kristen didn’t know, Dean would sell the Impala. He let it slide and nudged Aidan towards the other two. Sam looked to be in just as quiet a conversation with Kristen, giving her a small smile that only highlighted the epic bruising on the side of his face. Kristen gave him a nod in return, and Sam’s smile brightened.

“Ready?” Dean asked, making sure to announce himself. Sam nodded and took the book from the bag. Dean decided to keep the herbs for himself and handed Kristen the holy water. Careful fingers uncapped the bottle at his encouragement and waited.

The bag of marbles already sat on the ground, waiting. After a moment, Sam began to read from the book, not stumbling over a single Latin word or phrase. Dean tossed the herbs over the marbles, then nodded to Kristen and Aidan in turn to do the same with their items. Covered in cleansing materials, Dean pulled the matchbook from his pocket and lit one, then dropped it onto the bag. Sam finished the prayer and the bag suddenly lit with a warm glow, red to blue to purple and then one final bright, white light before the fire went out.

The breeze suddenly picked up and the air went frigid. Before Dean could do anything, however, a small, quiet voice whispered, _“Thank you_,” and then the air warmed once more. He glanced around, eyes seeking out the owner of the voice, but he knew he wouldn’t find him. Daniel was already gone.

He met Sam’s eyes over the marbles and saw the same realization and resignation in his eyes. A job well done, certainly finished, but kids were the hardest.

“Guess we know if Daniel stuck around,” Aidan said, shivering. “But…it feels different. He’s gone, right?”

“Yeah,” Kristen said. “Pretty sure he’s moved on.”

That was their cue. Sam gathered the bag of marbles and set it into the larger duffel bag. “Call us if you need anything,” he told the teens. Aidan and Kristen both glanced at Dean, and he gave them a nod with a grin. In an instant both of the teens were wrapped around Sam, startling him, but Dean just smirked all the more at Sam’s bewildered look. Sam hadn’t exactly been conscious when the teens had made numerous calls, asking how he was doing.

He wasn’t even surprised when they came at him next. Two very alive teens were safe and sound. Sam alive to give him a soft smile over the heads of the teens currently hugging him. He couldn’t really ask for much more than that.

They said their goodbyes and headed out. One glance back showed that both teens were walking taller now, and even as Dean watched, Kristen reached out and took Aidan’s hand, rolling her eyes the whole way. He snorted. Yeah, they’d be just fine.

He glanced at his brother as they drove. Sam had dug out the sunglasses in deference to his concussion and was currently leaning back against the passenger seat. Dean would get them out of the state and then he’d find somewhere to hole them up. Somewhere a little better than their usual fare and close to a hospital, just in case. His brother wasn’t stumbling like he’d been in the house, but he was still flinching from bright lights and rubbing his stomach like he felt sick. He’d also been slower and quieter than usual, all nods to his concussion still affecting him.

He cleared his throat gently, just enough to catch Sam’s attention. “How long were you with Amelia?” he asked softly.

Sam didn’t tense beside him, but he turned to Dean, absolutely confused. “A year, I told you,” he said.

Time to man up. “No, I said a year, and you didn’t disagree,” he said. “So how long were you with her?”

For a second, Sam seemed to not breathe, eyes wide and shining. He looked trapped. “How long, Sammy?” he asked softly.

Sam swallowed hard. “Um. Nine months.”

Nine months. That meant he had no clue what Sam had done for three months, and Sam hadn’t volunteered. “Tell me,” he said. No condemnation, no anger. Just listening in the way that a big brother should.

After a long pause, Sam began, haltingly, but sharing what had happened during the empty months after Dean and Cas had disappeared. As the story continue pouring out, Sam almost tripping over himself in his haste to get the words out, it was like a dam had finally broken open. And Dean became more and more resolved in his choice.

Sam would get out of hunting. No matter what happened to himself, Dean would get Sam out of hunting for good. White picket fence, kids, the whole nine yards.

And above all else, he would keep his little brother safe.

The story lasted until their first pit stop, with Sam starting to lilt side to side. Food, gas, then a room somewhere. He needed to check over Sam’s head wound again, take some pain killers himself for his arm and head. They’d gotten busted up pretty good on this one, but Sam’s head injury was definitely the most dangerous of any of the injuries they’d sustained. First hint of real trouble and Sam was heading to the hospital.

As he stepped out of the car, a hand fell on his arm. He glanced back and found Sam’s eyes watching him from under hooded lids. “Gonna check your shoulder,” he murmured. “Kristen said it was worse than you told me. An’ your head. An’ everything else.”

“Okay,” Dean said amicably.

“Got you back,” Sam mumbled. “Not gon’ lose you.”

Dean just smiled as Sam’s eyes slid shut. “Right here,” he promised quietly. “And I'm not losing you, either.”

Sam slept on. He watched his little brother for a minute more, then headed to find fuel for both car and kid.

_END_


End file.
